Joy to the World

Love wins.

Peace reigns.

The present is the Presence.

Merry Christmas!

and a few delicious words from our friend St. Augustine:

My dearly beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ! Here we are at midnight. Candles all around. You’re my children of light tonight, adopted tots in the kindergarten of the Lord! Have I got good news for you this holy eve! It’s from the Psalmist! Rejoice in the Lord! Raise bold, laudacious sounds as only the just can do! Yes yes, you already know what I’m going to say, but hear it anyway with a kind and open ear.

First off, come to love the things you believe!

Then speak out about the things you love!

Yes, we’re celebrating this anniversary day. Christ is born! God of the Father! A human being from a human mother! From the immortality of the Father- from the virginity of a mother. From the Father comes the Principle of Life- from His mother, the end of death!

Yes, my Brothers and Sisters, it’s the Angelic Voice we hear today! A rousing ovation! A feathery fluttering! The Savior came to save us today! What meaning can all this angelistic activity possibly have for us? The angels are His heavenly messengers; we’re His carrier pigeons. Ambrosia aplenty for them; manna galore for us.

A question arises. Just what was that heavenly fare? The Evangelist John had the answer.

“In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was made Flesh, and dwelled among us.” Whose Word? The Father Himself. What Word? The Son Himself. Never the One without the Other.

For humankind to eat the Bread of Angels, the Creator of Angels baked a loaf, the Loaf of Loaves; that’s to say, He was made man. He nudges the stars, but nurses from the breast.

Truth has sprung from the earth, or so the Psalmist has sung. Christ is born of the flesh- and that’s what we’ll sing today! We prayerfully presume we’re the Sons of God. Why? Because we’ve received the power to be such. For your sake the Timeless Cause of time has become a temporal effect Himself. Because of you, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the Founder of the World has made His appearance in the flesh. Because of you the Creator has become a creature. Now I know you find this hard to believe, so I ask you to believe something else first. God was made man so that He could make men into gods. Without losing a slip of what He was, He wanted to become what He’d made. That’s to say, He made what He already was. How? By adding human nature to Divine Nature without at the same time losing His Divine Nature in that human nature.

When the Wordiness of an Other-worldly God revealed itself as a worldly if worldless tot, and when the Word of God let out, if not the Wisdom of God, then an unholy howl, that’s when we’re talking about the Birthday of the Lord. The Scholars in the East read the Divine Event in the skies. The Shepherds in the hills heard the Angelic Voices. We get the word today, the anniversary of the event, in the solemnity of our celebration. In it we refer to the Psalmist’s prophecy: Truth has sprung from the earth, and Justice has looked down from Heaven. The Truth that holds the world together with rugged hands has sprung from the earth so that He may be held by His mother’s lacy fingers. The Truth that overflows the Heavens’ banks has sprung from the earth so that it may lie within the friendly confines of a manger.

Where did “peace on earth” come from? From the Truth that sprang from the earth; that’s to say, from Christ who was born of the flesh.

The Lord has made all things, and yet He takes His stand among the very things He’s made. He’s the Revealer of His father, and at the same time He’s the Creator of His mother. He’s the Word of God before there were timepieces; He’s the Word made flesh who stoped the clock when He was made flesh. He made the sun with His own hands, and yet He Himself was made under the light and heat of the sun. He remains with His Father, and yet He goes forth from His mother. He’s the Creator of the heavens and the earth; and yet He takes His own rise under the heavens and the earth. As God He has more Wisdom than He can mouth, and yet as a babe He hasn’t enough mouth to utter the Wisdom He knows. His divinity isn’t underwhelmed by His humanity, nor is His humanity overwhelmed by His divinity. He didn’t abandon His divine agenda when He picked up His carpenter’s tools. He didn’t stop holding His universe together with His might arms while He was trying to catch flies with His baby fingers. He put on the clumsiness of the flesh when He entered the Virgin’s womb, and yet His movement throughout the universe wasn’t hampered by the baggy pants. He didn’t take away the food of Wisdom from the Angels while He was supplying us with the sweetness of the Lord.

Let’s stroll in the light of His aura!

Let’s rejoice in His presence!

Let’s be truly glad He’s here with us today, of all days!

Advent Reconciliation

Pictures from Scott Bennett from Advent 2007's La Posada Sin Fronteras at Friendship Park

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smbennett/sets/72157603486306430/

The Advent season is often filled with so many warm and sentimental memories – favorite foods, intimate times at home with loved ones, beautiful music that fills the air, gift exchanges with those close to you, care for those who regularly go without. Advent is also a time for reflection, repentance and mourning. It is a time to be with our fellow Christians, our families, but it is also a time to reach out to the suffering around us.

So, this Saturday, Dec. 13, La Posada Sin Fronteras celebrates Christian hope and hospitality by gathering as Christians on both sides of the border fence. They meet at Border Field State Park, where the border fence meets the ocean. La Posada sin Fronteras celebrates and mourns because it is important to remember the migration of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the lack of a warm welcome that they found in Bethlehem. They anticipate the Jesus coming and they mourn the babies that died under the hand of Herod at Jesus’ birth. They celebrate reconciliation and mourn for the families of those who died crossing the US/Mexico border. They mourn as they remember the pain that many families have experienced as they have been migrants at some point in history. They mourn to remember that the borders they have are artificial, that this particular border did not exist prior to 1948 and may not exist again in the future. They mourn to confess complicity in creating them to protect “us” from “them,” and to confess that they continue to enforce these borders to protect the privileged at the expense of those who go without.They celebrate the unity in Christ, and they mourn the border as a symbol and sign of the divisions that separate brother and sister from one another.

weeping and resurrection

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

One of the more well known verses of the Bible. Jesus knows that he will raise Lazarus from the dead. Mary and Martha are full of sorrow and frustration that Jesus didn't get there sooner. So what then does weeping with Mary achieve? Jesus' weeping confirms the power of resurrection.

In those moments of weeping Jesus confirms that death without the hope of resurrection is unbearably sorrowful. That is the type of death Mary understand Lazarus to have. Jesus spends time confirming what is truly sad in that situation- not that Lazarus is dead, but that Mary's words to Him are, "Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Mary's words show that she doesn't yet understand Jesus to be someone who has power over death.

Earlier in the chapter, He had a similar encounter with Martha. Martha, though, seems to have a better grasp on Jesus' power of resurrection. She says "But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you....I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." and she responds with a "yes" when Jesus asks her if she believes that He is the resurrection and the life.

Not that I think Martha knew exactly what Jesus meant by resurrection. But there is a difference between her and Mary's words. Jesus weeps with Mary and co. over a death that has no hope in resurrection.

I've been thinking today about resurrection, and connecting this Mary/Martha passage to 2 Peter 3 :8-9. "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

I can imagine Mary and Martha thinking that Jesus was slow in his actions to raise up Lazarus. But it wasn't about how long things took for Jesus. And those verses from Peter say that as well. It was about not wishing that any should perish...and in this situation, it was Mary and Martha He didn't wish to see perish in despair.

Yes, of course it was a miracle that Jesus raised Lazarus. But I think the real miracle is in how beautifully Jesus confirms these verses: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4: 16-18)

If Mary had been able to look at the unseen, at the resurrection of Lazarus which hadn't happened yet, she would not have lost heart. (not that i'm blaming her...don't know that i would have reacted any differently). Mary's fixed point of reality was Lazarus' death rather than Jesus as one who resurrects. Mary identifies the problem that we still have- bodily existence is tied to the present age, and the present age is tied to affliction and hardship. But the age to come is tied to resurrection and glory.

I've wondered today what it is that I actually weep about. Do I weep in despair, or do I weep because the fixed points of society are found in the physical world of the present, and not in the eternal one? Do I weep because I personally see no hope, or do I weep because the way the world approaches brokenness and death is largely one that has no hope?

compare and contrast

I know...it has been a while. Life has been busy.

New Panthers' war on whites

and

White supremacists target middle America

The first article in particular raises this question for me: what are the effects of hate that is openly displayed and clearly stated by the 'hater' vs. hate that is subliminally worked into systems and structures and peoples' mindsets? Is one hate "better" than another?

Which is worse...secret societies like the KKK, or obvious and open words and works of hate? Do they have different effects? Have different goals? Target different people? Emerge from different motives?

Psalm 133
1Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.

I really can't even fathom how much heart-ache we, the creations of God, cause for our creator.

"The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene

Recently finished this book....and liked it very much. Yay for having time to read fiction for fun :) Here is a snip-it from near the end. General set-up: a police officer is bringing a priest to be executed because all things relating to religion/God are forbidden and the government is going about setting up an existence in which God does not exist.

Police officer: "I said I suppose you were hoping for a miracle,"

Priest: "No."

"You believe in them, don't you?"

"Yes. But not for me. I'm no more good to anyone, so why should God keep me alive?"

"I can't think how a man like you can believe in those things. The Indians, yes. Why, the first time they see an electric light they think it's a miracle."

"And I dare say the first time you saw a man raised from the dead you might think so too. It isn't a case of miracles not happening- it's just a case of people calling them something else. Can't you see the doctors round the dead man? He isn't breathing any more, his pulse has stopped, his heart's not beating: he's dead. Then somebody gives him back his life, and they all- what's the expression?- reserve their opinion. They won't say it's a miracle, because that's a word they don't like. Then it happens again and again perhaps- because God's about on earth- and they say: these aren't miracles, it is simply that we have enlarged our conception of what life is. Now we know you can be alive without pulse, breath, heart-beats. And they invent a new word to describe that state of life, and they say science has disproved a miracle." He giggled again. "You can't get around them."

Cost-Effective Community

We live in a time where Herod is in control...If you stand up and do as John the Baptist did, say a few simple words- such as That is not right; this is not how it should be done; this is not how we should treat one another; this is not how we should life-you are risking death. Sometimes we forget that the Christian life is a risky life, a life that might cost you your own life. This is the context of the text, and also the context of the miracle....This is the Gospel. This is where it is preached, in dangerous times.

From Pathologies of Power:

These are indeed dangerous times. In the name of "cost-effectiveness," we cut back health benefits to the poor, who are more likely to be sick than the nonpoor. We miss our chance to heal. In the setting, we're told, of "scarce recources," we imperil the health care safety net. In the name of expendience, we miss our chance to be humane and compassionate. Herod remains in control, but this is also the context of the miracle: it is precisely such contexts that we have the privilege of reasserting our humanity. Against a tide of utilitarian opionion and worse, we are offered the chance to insist, This is not how it should be done. Indeed, this is always what healers were called upon to say, but now the stakes are even higher. The world is a very different place now than when the prophets roamed the land. Medical technology has changed. We have great laboratories, diagnostic capabilities, and effective medications for a host of diseases.

Certainly, distributing these developments equitably would be expensive. Certainly, excess costs must be curbed. But how can we glibly use trms like "cost-effective" when we see how they are perverted in contemporary parlance? You want to help hte poor? Then your projects must be "self-sustaining" or "cost-effective," You want to erase the poor? Hey, knock yourself out. The sky's the limit.

Similar chicanery is used with a host of other terms, ranging from "appropriate technology" to "community." Through analytic legerdemain- the world is composed of discretely bounded nation-states, some rich, some poor, and each with its unique destiny- we're asked to swallow what is, ultimately, a story of growing inequality.

Is this the best we can do? Attempting to provide a "basic minimum package" for the poor is something that should be done apologetically, not proudly. Even the WHO, which has invested heavily in promoting cost-effectiveness as a means of assessing health care services, recognizes the sharp limitations of this method in improving the health of the poor and thus addressing inequalities of outcome:

"Cost-effectiveness by itself is relevent for achieving the best overall health, but not necessarily for hte second health goal, that of reducing inequality. Populations with worse than average health may respond less well on an intervention, or cost more to reach or to treat, so that a concern for distribution implies a willingness to sacrifice some overall health gains for other criteria."
-Pathologies of Power. by Dr. Paul Farmer.

if you liked this snip-it, read this book! I started years ago and am finally finishing it. Paul Farmer is a strong believer in health care as a basic human right. Many medical professionals currently strongly disagree with this statement. I think the difference in opinion, and the vast array of opinions between Farmer's and medical professionals,' hinges on how 'health' is defined, and therefore what it means to care for the 'health' of a person or a people.

There is one thing Paul Farmer is absolutely right about: everyday we miss chances to heal, and those chances should be viewed as priviledges.

to care? or not to care?

One of the significant differences between my time in San Diego and time at school over the last few years is my exposure to what is going on in the world in a more global sense. Hopefully this will change next year. I really hate reading the news online...just a personal pet peeve...and I know that there are free newspapers available all over campus so I don't really have any excuses. But there is something so much more appealing at home to sit in the morning in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, bowl of mango crisp cereal, and read the newspaper. Or sit with my dad and watch the news at night, or turn it on while doing the dishes or cooking.

Needless to say, at school if I was knowledgeable about something going on in the world, it was largely because I had made some kind of specific effort to learn about it. Thus, I really got to filter what kinds of world events I heard about and let myself care about. I've found watching the news/reading the paper over the last two weeks kind of like a continual punch in the face in terms of all the crappy stuff that goes on in the world. In no way do the uplifting news stories balance out the tragic ones. hmm...uplifting news story...that's almost an oxymoron.

Natural disasters, environmental concerns, deadly diseases, freak tragic accidents, border trouble, global poverty, kidnappings, sex scandals...the list could go on forever. So the question I end up asking myself is, to what degree to I try to care about all of these things? What level of responsibility do I have to care about them? What is the ultimate purpose of reading or listening to the news?

Some obvious answers are: on practical level, no, I can't actively care for all of these things. In fact, I'll be lucky if I can wrap my mind fully around one of them. So my next thought then turns to, well, if I pour lots of energy into caring about one of those news items...say...healthcare [and by caring about in this case I also mean actively pursuing some way of working to better the situation], and a community exists in which each person cares in that active way about the causes they gravitate most towards, well that would seem to solves things. I do think that that is the kind of community we are called to be, and that peace-making and shalom-bringing is always a communal event [modeled after the ultimate community: Father-Son-Spirit], but easier said than done.

I then run into the question/tension that has been brought up for me in college more than any other: how to pursue the peace-making/shalom-bringing works of God while recognizing that we (individually and communally) are most definitely not God? How to pursue the process of becoming perfect, as our heavenly father is perfect, and living knowing that we are created in his image? How to have our power perfect in our weakness, and what kind of power does that create? Ecc 8:8-10, Psalm 90, and Luke 12:25 are examples of the kinds of power we don't have. There is lots more to be said about power, but I think that my original question is answered largely by Micah 6:8. He has told you, oh man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

That last one, walk humbly, is key. The first two are easy to understand and are seen as generally good things in the eyes of most people. So really, what the reading and hearing the news ends up doing for me, after the repeated punches in the face because of the crappy condition of so many peoples' lives, is that much softer but strongly persistent reminder that we're not asked to take on the burdens of the world. That was done. It is amazing how difficult it is sometimes for the good news of that statement to overpower my attitude of hopelessness for the conditions of the world. And while it is easy to think that I'm a good person for wanting to care and act on all these different issues, it is also really prideful to think that I can take any of them on as my burdens, let alone all of them. Yes, we are told to bear one another's burdens to to care for others, but never without first having humility, and acknowledging who the real yoke-carrier is.

A Community of Tree People

When I was little and would draw pictures in crayons of trees or hillsides or general outdoor scenery, my mom would always say, "Steffie, not all the trees are the same color. Use some different colors when you draw. It will look prettier and more realistic." My art career didn't advance much beyond that, but it reminded me this week about the diversity in nature that exists, and how it is pretty universally seen as beautiful.

No one looks at a hillside of spring or autumn trees, all different colors and heights, with no shade of green exactly the same, and says, "it would be way better if these were all the same color." The same can be said about almost anything alive in nature. Entire hobbies are devoted to discovering different bird types, flower species, whale songs, and even insect variations. Diversity, in nature, is not only beautiful, it is beneficial. There are volumes of sciency things that could be said about that statement, but to keep it pretty simple: the ultimate goal of living things in nature is to remain alive and produce offspring that remain alive. If it were true that all organisms of a certain species lived longest and produced the most offspring when they were all the same, then all those organisms would, in fact, look the same. Clearly this is not the case. And if it were the case that it didn't matter whether or not diversity existed within a species, then we would see some species look all alike, and some have diversity. This is also not the case. The remaining option, is that it is indeed a positive and beneficial living environment for all species when diversity exists amongst their own kind.

"the over three hundred thousand known varieties of beetles led biologist J.B.S. Haldane to consider that ‘God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.’ Why, one must ask, did God make creation so diverse? One can assume only that the wealth of life on earth is due to God’s extravagance. He created the squirrel not because of any real need for squirrels but because he liked the idea of squirrels. Looking upon the natural world, it is easy to sense God’s sheer joy in creation- you can imagine the delight he felt when he came up with the ridiculous idea of giraffes.

The diversity of creation is simply a reflection of who God is. God is diverse. God is triune- three in one. It is often said that the most profound theological statement in the whole Bible is that ‘God is love.’ The truth is that were God a single person, if he were one rather than three and one, we could not know him as love. As theologican Stanely Grenz put it, ‘Self-love cannot be true charity, supreme love requires another, equal to the lover, who is the recipient of that love, and because supreme love is received as well as given, it must be a shared love, in which each person loves and is loved by the other.’ It is only because the Father, Son, and Spirit respond to each other in constantly loving relationships that we can say that the very nature of God is love. The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that God is a community. God is in the constant eternal relationship."
-Intelligent Church by Steve Chalk and Anthony Watkins

Diversity generates stronger and more creative ideas and so produces more imaginative solutions to problems than are likely to result from the best efforts of a single mind. The result of being surrounded by others who will always agree with you is mediocrity. Personal growth and community creativity are born out of the tension of differing opinions, approaches, and insights.

But back to the original discussion of trees. Why is it that it is so easy for us to look out into nature and to see both the beauty and the benefits of diversity, and o difficult for us to do that with humans? Is it because we are less pretty to look at? Is it because we don't step back and look at society in the same way we look at a hillside? Is it that we have not felt the benefits of our differences? Is it that we think we are all the same?

Created things, whether books, paintings, or buildings, tell us about who created it and why. Biologists would call this relating structure with function. All basic biology books talk about how the structure of the natural world, from cells to planets, relates to their function. One does not come before the other, but rather structure and function are inexorably linked and shift together. God, as the ultimate creator, tells us about Himself through His creation. He has told us what our function is- to love God and love neighbor- and He gives us His Word to teach us how to do that, His Son to do it perfectly for us, and His Spirit to move us to do it.

So that takes care of function. What about structure? We can talk about structure in terms of our physical bodies and mental/emotional abilities. I'm interested more in structure as a society, since it communally that we make up the fullness of the image of God. If we see that differences between living things are beautiful and beneficial and tell us something about what God values, how do we structure our society so that it fits the function it has been given? God's Word says a good deal about cities, city structures, and living communally. What strikes me again and again is how He can look at individuals and communities and see the pure beauty He originally created, though fragmented, and ask us to see it too, so that we would understand Him, as our creator, more.

1 The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
-Psalm 50

networking

Starting the fund development process has been a cool way of seeing how different people, places, and organizations have become connected to one another, and have each given me different tid-bits of knowledge, experience, and concern, that have shaped the things that I care about now. If find it hard sometimes to really take to heart the often tossed-out verses of Jer. 29:11" For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." And Philippians 1:6 "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Ironically, hope in the future can be firmly founded in God's faithfulness in the past, and the "plan" and "good work" has really always been taken care of and grown. At the most basic level, raising support in San Diego [which has really just barely started], is like connecting the past with the present. The fact that I am even in contact with this many people form pre-Penn life is a testament to the hope/future/plan for completion. It is fun to look back [and forward] and see how the people and places here in San Diego have changed me and to return to those people and places a very different person, and show them concretely what has changed and even how they've had a part in that.

A few examples...

In high school I worked for San Diego Youth and Community Services. Next week I'm meeting with their CEO, who was just a board member like me 5 years ago, to talk about IV and them maybe supporting me. Turns out that Dr. Ross, the CEO of the California Endowment and my general hero [look down a few posts], is the biggest financial supporter of SDYCS, and so he's going to join Walter, the SDYCS guy, and I for that meeting. I only met Dr. Ross because of being an RA in Ware, and because of being on Helen Davies floor. Dr. Ross went to Penn and worked for Helen as a freshmen. It is also Helen that gave me a TA job next year for her Infectious Diseases class, and an academic job like that is one of Howard's requirements for letting me defer. So anyway, in high school when I was on the SDYCS board, one of the board members introduced me to the president of San Diego's Soroptimists chapter. They gave me a scholarship for Penn, and are actually based in Philly, and are also potential donors. SDYCS showed me the incredible brokenness of the inner city for the first time, but I wouldn't have applied for their student spot on the board if I hadn't already been interested in social justice type stuff. That part of life was influenced largely by Girl Scouts and Sue. Girl Scouts taught me about leadership and Sue, along with a few others, taught me about the importance and joy of living out the Gospel. She also gave me the application for SDYCS. The Meinert family, who are good friends with Sue and took me to church, gave me a picture of Christ-centered family and community. That community became the image of what I wanted to find in college, and that landed me looking for Christian fellowships, which brings me full circle to IV. So now, I return to San Diego, with new connections like Dr. Ross, and old ones like SDYCS and Sue, but they're all connected. And really, I could keep going with the connections.

So while the Jer 29:11 words are very true, I actually have been connecting most with a different part of Jer. 29. Before promising the exiles hope and a future, God says this: 5 "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

All of these people and organizations are seeking the peace and prosperity of the city, and they have taught me to do the same. They all address different facets of city peace, and so looking at them as a whole [though they don't all know each other], is beautiful. And these people HAVE prospered, oh so much, because of what they are doing. They have fought for peace, and lived out Micah 6:8 and placed their hope in Isaiah 65; they have sought God and lived because of it.

The network is intricate. More intricate than I could have ever planned out, or than even the best career services seminar on networking could imagine. It emerges from an economy of grace.

16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ~ Colossians 1

God could have chosen other people and places to teach me about Him [and being infinitely good, I'm sure those other paths would have been fine :)], but I am oh so glad that He gave me the people and places that He did. Many of these people had no idea that they were moving me towards God, and while my initial reason for meeting up with them in the next three weeks is to talk about them supporting me on IV staff, pretty solidly connected to that is the chance to tell them how they've been important in my journey of faith for the last several years. 11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. ~1 Chronicles 29

graduating...right about now

To whom much is given, much is expected.

Dear RAs and GAs,

in an email from our house dean

...I wanted to alert you to two very important things. First, please be alert and aware in these last days of the semester. This is a time when students sometimes blow off steam in inappropriate ways. Just last night a student was written up for getting drunk and lighting a chair on fire in the quad. Obviously, this is the kind of thinking that can be very, very dangerous to the student and all of us. In other words, don't sleep--it may be near the end, but we have to stay committed as this is in fact a peak time for certain kinds of problems....

you got to admit...lighting a chair on fire is at least more fun to write up than just general drunkenness...oh man.

Spreading the Safety Net- Obstacles to the Expansion of Community Health Centers

During the presidency of Bush, his administration's agenda of "compassionate conservatism" with its emphasis on market-based, rather than government-sponsered, approaches to health care services and income support, has been rejected by Democrats innumerable times. This philosophical conflict has resulted in stalemates on many health care issues, and the administration's proposed 2009 budget, which calls for reductions of 200.9$ billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending over the next 5 years, only deepens the political divide. Bush has remained resolute, though, in fulfilling one early campaign pledge that most Democrats enthusiastically embrace: doubling the number of community health centers (CHCs) over a 5 year period so that millions more people who lack insurance or have limited access to private medical care can be treated as publicaly funded facilities. Bush's commitmement persuaded more Republicans to support CHCs, and the result has been a politically effective bipartisanship on this front.

The CHC initiative was launched by Lyndon B. Johnson duirng the administration's War on Poverty and got its inspiration from a South African movement that had offstarted the creation of facilities where poor workers could receive both public healht services and medical care. The primary goals were combining these disparate models and removing financial barriers to access. These goals, along with an emphasis on empowering the community to participate in decision making for CHCs by requiring that the majority of their board members be patients, were build into the centers' operating principles.

Reflecting this "power to the people" philosophy, the funding mechanism for CHCs consists of federal grants that bypass state governments and flow directly to these nonprofit, community-based organiztions. CHCs now number 1200 nationally and operate in some 6000 urban and rural sites in every state and territory and served an estimated 16.3 million people this year. 40% of the patients are uninsured and 35% are covered through Medicaid, with the remainder on Medicare or private insurance. Patients who are uninsured pay according to a sliding scale based on their ability to pay [like Esperanza in North Philly].

2/3 of CHC patients are memebers of racial or ethnic minority groups and many lack proficiency in English. More than 2/3 live on incomes at or below the federal poverty level and more than 92% have incomes below 200% of this threshold. Because their population is relatively young and disproportianly made up of young women and children, there is a high demand for primary care services.

Still, the mix of private and public activities that make up the health care system presents the centers with major challenges. As more people have lost their employer-sponsored or Medicaid coverage and become uninsured, greater demands have been placed on CHCs. Other challenges include recruiting and retaining physicians, nurses, and allied professionals who can provide primary care; securing specialty referrals for uninsured and Medicaid patients; and functioning in the face of budget cutbacks in Medicaid and SCHIP.

The number of doctors providing charity care has dropped significantly over the past decade, increasing the burden on CHCs and ERs. Meanwhile, it is difficult to attract physicians to staff positions at CHCs because hospital medical groups can offer them higher salaries. It is difficult to find specialists willig to treat uninsured patients who have no source of payment.

CHC,s which participate in policy activities largely through the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), are striving to attract more physicians through natoinal, state, and local levels. CHCs meet the definition of a 'medical home' as developed by primary care medical organizations, but we will not be able to reach expansionary goals if we cannot attract a greater number of clinicians to these centers and more federal support from Washington. Despite good intentions on both sides, it remains uncertain whether Congress or the new administration will see the continued expansion of CHCs as a vital step toward reforming the health care system. Clearly, I think it's a vital step.

healthcare, community, poverty, and policy

I just spent the last three hours listening to and talking with my new hero. Dr. Robert K. Ross, the president of the CA Endowment, whose goal is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental imporvements in the health status of all. I was so jittery and excited and at one point almost started crying because he seriously outlined exactly what I want to do with my life and gave me tons of crazy cool new ideas, and it is so strange and yet wonderful to be affirmed in those ideas by someone much older, well-known, and generally brilliant. Here is my response to some of what he said:

Health revolution #1: The late 70s/early 80s made communicable and infectious diseases the most importand health care issue. If you want to hear about the history of AIDS watch the movie "And the Band Played On."

Health revolution #2: In 1985/86 crack cocaine became the new street drug of choice. It went from 100$ per hit to 5$. It is highly addictive, causes pain to go away, releases people from depression, and only lasts about an hour. The effects of cocaine are so much greater in a community oriented framework. Since the advent of cheap crack cocaine, life expectancy in inner cities has decreased. In 1990 in Philadelphia, the average life expectancy was 48. In 1980 it was 60. The statistics are similar for Southern California. Women get addicted and how do they get their money? Prostitution. Men get addicted and how do they get their money? Stealing and dangerous street trade. The prostitution breeds STDs and unwanted pregnancy. Cocaine induces muscle contractions, so babies are born too early. Stealing and street violence produces gangs. All of the above produces unsafe streets and home environments, and there is an entire generation of young people who grew up in houses and neighborhoods where these effects were very present. What is society doing for these youths now? What is society doing for the 1980s coke addicts now? One might ask, can we really extrapolate all of these effects from one cause: cocaine? Mostly yes, but fully no. But we shouldn't be ignoring the fact that the answer really is 'mostly yes.' LA and San Diego were hit the first and the hardest with cocaine trafficking, but it clearly has become a national problem. Economics is key here. The fact that cocaine became more abundent and cheaper effected the drug market in huge ways, which in turn effected every other systemic structure of society these cocaine addicts came into contact with, from neighborhood housing, to education, to healthcare. 1 in 3 men of minority status is destined to be a part of the criminal justice system at some point in his life as of 1990. Clearly, no part of society is left untouched by these statistics...who, after all, is paying for the incarceration of these men?

The second healthcare revolution comes to a close in the early 21st century with chronic, rather than communicable, diseases being the most talked about issue. This is largely because health care organiztions and individuals gave up on trying to deal with the problems of drug dealer and prostitutes and changed their focus to the poor. The shift in healthcare brought a focus on the chronic problems of the poor: diabetes, obesity, malnutrition, hypertension, bad eyesite, some STDs, and even cancers [not an issue of the poor as much, but definitely chronic].

Heathcare revolution #3: The closer look at chronic conditions has caused healthcare organiztions and individuals to look more closely at the healthcare system at large. Chronic conditions, after all, don't go away and require long term care, so the issue becomes a systemic one rather than a 'fix-it-once' solution. If you look up the word system in the dictionary, in no way does it describe what we have in terms of healthcare. People are starting to realize that the US spends more on health care than any other country in the world, and by no means has the best health. This third revolution is focused, therefore, around bringing health. That should be a 'duh' isn't that what heathcare is for. But if you look throughout the history of healthcare in America, it really isn't. Healthcare has been structured around reaction to problems rather than action and prevention. Reactionary care is absolutely important, but it will always be incomplete. Preventative healthcare economics is predicted to be the new and revolutionary field in the 21st century.

Take a guess: how much of your life expectancy right now is determined by the quality of healthcare you receive? Between 10 and 25% depending upon your healthcare plan. That is ridiculous!! So, what else is determining your life expectancy? Race, class, social status, gender, genes, and the way these things affect the social structures you interact with. [this is all from a legit study nationally recognized].

So when I say that the new healthcare revolution is focused on health, I really mean that it is focused on extending life expectancy. This will require tackling these other seeminly non-health related issues.

How to act: it is all about neighborhoods and community. And really, it's not just because that's what I'm passioante about. This is what all studies in the last 4 years have shown. Healthcare workers who are fed up with trying to work within the confines of the system are opting out and creating neighborhood and community organiztions [some of which have grown state-wide and nationally!]. There's a guy in Harlem who picked 20 square blocks to dedicate himself to. He has fully reformed the way the kids in that neighborhood get healthcare, education, and housing/supervision at home. On his wall he has a map of his 20 blocks of Harlem, and another map of the US with pins in the different cities where these once-street kids are now going to college. This stuff works! [and it's making me cry to think about it working :)].

What about the argument: this is too small-scale? That is a valid argument [though let's not discout the fact that the small-scale efforts are working!]. Here is where the policy makers and economists come in. So far, the benefits of small scale community health care have yet to be scaled up to fit a larger national context. There are two options: Find a way to unite and scale up the several small community focused healthcare groups, or encourage lots more of them to form in as many communities as possible. I would argue that both need to happen at the same time and that they will strengthen each other. How do we create a national healthcare structure that has all of the intimacies of neighborhood healthcare? Our problem isn't that we don't know what a good healthcare structure looks like. We do know. The last 10 years have given us success story after success story of non profits, independent hospitals, and clinics which have drastically influence the health of a community. We have the structure, now we need to find a way to fit it to a larger model.

Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security...And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a priase and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. -Jer 33:6,9

Fling, Flung, Flang...Fun?

I got a fortune cookie once that said: "you need more fun in your life." Yeah. I know. What kind of fortune is that? I thought a lot about fun this weekend. One of my med school interview questions was: "what do you do for fun?" After a little internal chuckle, I replied: "Run, be active outside, read, play piano, talk with friends, hang out with my residents.." The guy gave me a look like "are you serious, wow, you have no life." I don't know...those seem like legit fun things to me.

It's hard to be an RA in the quad during fling and not switch into "high judgment" mode. After writing up dozens of people, coordinating medical transports, calling for barf clean-ups, and watching your relatively normal and responsible residents go totally nuts, and still having it be a part of my job to "punish" these kids, it's hard to remain judgement-free. Here I am being all good and clean and responsible and what do I get for it? hallways of barf. Not exactly the easiest moment to remmeber I've got my own internal hallways of barf...I just have the priviledge of being able to keep them relatively hidden. In that sense, there is an element of freedom, or at least honesty, in outward debachaury.

But back to the theme of fun. The lines between work and fun are not as defined for me as they are for some. There isn't much that I do that I would say is wholly devoid of fun [except pchem]. But on the flip side, I also don't do much that is wholly devoid of some kind of work. [hmm, this probably requires a definition for what exactly 'work' is] For example, I am having a great time writing my final research paper on Faulkner's representations of American cycles of poverty. That's a more nerdy example of what I mean by blending work and fun. But it does make me question: do I know how to have fun? really? Do I shirk away from fully non-work and all-fun situations because maybe I don't know how to interact in them? Do I not know how to let loose and have fun? What do these fun flingers have that I don't, in that respect? Where should the balance rest between interacting with the world around me, and drawing back to do my own thing? Is the "doing my own thing" a result of judgement/pride and even resentment that other people are having fun, and even though it's not the kind of fun I want to have, they're still having fun and I'm not? or am I really content with just having my kind of fun be a little different?

I find it somewhat problematic that at the mention of Spring Fling, my initial reaction is...ok, whose house can I go hang out at to get away from it. I can name tons of reasons for why I would more readily flee from Fling than from other situations of brokenness [and yeah, i think i can say Fling has got some brokennes to it when I find couples having sex in the public trash room...]. But at their cores, what makes one broken situation different from another? Why is it so much easier for me to love the homeless guy who refuses to accept food from me but will take my money to, theoretically, buy alcohol with? than to love drunk penn kids at fling? I mean, I do have some answers to that questions, but are they legit answers? Not really. These kids are my neighbors in the most literal sense of the word, and yet this weekend I would rather think of some obscure poverty-ridden country than about some of the more tangible problems that exist on campus. And that left me somewhat in a state of apathy this fling. I saw tons of stuff I could have written up, but didn't. I just didn't feel like putting the effort in to argue with another group of drunk people to get their Penncards and write them up and internally know that nothing was actually going to happen to them. So in that respect I'm kind of diappointed in myself that I wasn't consistent with the rules. Consistency is important when it comes to inforcing protocol. I guess it's just hard for me to see students who really do have opportunities that others will never have, simply by being here or by having grown up in the family/culture environment that they did, and then not using it. But then, I guess on the tiniest scale, that's what God feels. He gives us life and we still find ways of breaking it up. And at the end of the day, that's really why I'm not allowed any judgement on the residents I write up. Without mercy and grace, God would have written me up so many times the 'house dean' definitely would have kicked me out of the 'quad.'

pchem = antishalom

sample test question [ok, obvioulsy this is not an actual question...but they sound like this when you're reading them during your hour of testing]

1) a) i) Prove mathematically the meaning of life and the existence of the universe using concepts from quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics. Complement your answer with a diagram, and label and explain the various significant points within it.

1) a) ii) Explain how the above proof physically relates to the color of the sky and the average atmospheric pressure on Neptune.

1) b) i) Using a SINGLE mathematical statement, state how a liter of high-speed fermions in South Dakota will influence the average daily rainfall in Argentina.

1) b) ii) BRIEFLY explain the above equation in your own words. Feel free to complement your answer with equations. And diagrams. With labels. And equations to explain those labels which themselves are complemented by diagrams. Feel free to continue your answer into another blue book.

Suggested time: 3 minutes

little sis' revelation on maturity

an email from her:
neeeawwwwwwwwwww how cute....my little girl is alll...........big! i guess i'm the real little one though

i think the smarter you get, the more potential you have to be extremely immature. it's like climbing the stairs of immaturity. you start at the bottom and ur like, a baby. then you get smarter and take a step, and you also get a cookie and eat it, signifying smartness (now in the stomach). an so on and so forth. but if the right thing comes along to push you over, you fall down. you don't lose your cookies (aka your smarts) because you ate them....but you're back down on the immaturity. and the higher the stairs you go....the more potential to fall.....muahahaha physics. keep your cookies. but fall down the stairs every now and then (i'll make sure that happens)

love,
me

The Art of War

No, I'm not actually talking about or reading the famous book, "The Art of War," but the title is still appropriate. The last week in Germany was good for many reasons. Some questions that arose during the trip, which included a good amount of WWI/II/Cold War sights: How are we to remember the victims of a war who were on the "bad guy" side? For how many generations should a nation actively remember/repent/ask forgiveness for wrongs done in the past? Is it necessary and proper to remember/repent/ask forgiveness for wrongs done by your culture/nation in which you yourself played no active role? If these steps are not taken, will the conflict always live on, however well masked it may be? What would international politics look like if world leaders acted as Daniel did when he asked forgiveness not only for his own wrongs but for those of his whole nation? And finally, what role should art play in remembering the past? They are not new questions, but newly surfaced.

Berlin is a city full of the histories of different wars. Wars though, I believe, are never fully history- they live on into the lives of future generations, the way cities are constructed, the demgraphics of cities and countries, and the art that is produced decades and centuries later. War changes people, places, and things. War changed me when I was called "nazi girl" in 6th grade, and this week, when I was reminded of my Oma's time spent in a Russian concentration camp. Where there is war, there is art. I've become pretty sure of that. War brings battle songs, propaganda drawings, victorious murals and scuptures of battle heros, carefully designed memorials, new clothing styles, and new literary genres. It transcends all types of art and no theme is left untouched, from religion to fashion to sports.

It was not until recently that Berlin [and Germany in general] began to think more intently about how to remember the Holocaust in art and education. The Berlin Holocaust memorial was constructed only this year, and the Jewish museum remembering WWII is also new to the last decade. In addition to two other main sights, the Topographies of Terror and Checkpoint Charlie, these are the main Holocuast sites of rememberance. Both of them are considered modern art and the artists intentionally left their message open to interpretation. It would take too long to describe the memorial and museum in this post [maybe the next], but the theme of using modern art that is intentionally open to interpretation to remember/memorialize the Holocaust is pretty provocative, I think.

I don't know tons about the theory and and philosophy of modern art. Wikipedia says: Modern art refers to the new approach to art which placed emphasis on representing emotions, themes, and various abstractions. Artists experimented with new ways of seeing, with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art, often moving further toward abstraction. More generally, I've always though of modern art, particularly in the late 20th and 21st centuries, to be focused on the the viewers interpretation and experience. WWII is different than other wars in that it's hard to argue about who the "bad guys" were. In some wars its hard to tell...one side started something, another responded, and it was back and forth until someone won. But wars that have more clear "good guy/bad guy" sides are, ironically, harder to memorialize, I think, because no matter what, for the rest of history you are remembering one side as bad. So I find it interesting that Germany has chosen pretty abstract art forms to commemorate the Holocaust. It's not true for all the museums/monuments there, but for many. What reponsibility do artists have to remember the past through their work when the past is pretty clear cut on who the "bad guy" was. Is it responsible to use abstract art forms to memorialize something that maybe shouldn't be left open to interpretation? Is there a danger that the viewer won't the the right message? or won't get a powerful enough message to accurately reflect the Holocaust? Is using art that is highly inteprative [as opposed to strictly factual pictures/stories...etc] a way of avoiding a more blunt picture of the past...a picture that is still really really hard for Germany to face? Is that why the Holocaust is more frequently depicted in modern art in Germany as opposed to other cities/countires that have Holocaust museums? Or will this art give a greater and more intense response?

I think in many ways that this abstract art is more for the current German people than it is for the past or to remember those who were victims. You can't force someone to feel a certain way about an event, especially if they weren't even alive during that time. But you can create ways of helping them to think about it and arive at some personal emotional response through the process. Do we run the risk though of never arriving at an emotional response if the art is "too abstract?" Why is it important for later generations to have a resopnse? I'm not totally sure, but I'm pretty sure it's important. War changes everything.

a snipit from my Great Depression Lit seminar:
"This friend of mine, Karl, is a writer. He is always hungry. You cannot stuff yourself on a dollar a week. It is not his fault he is always hungry. It is that nobody buys the stuff he writes. He writes of starving babies, and men who tramp the streets in search of work. People do not like such things. For in Karl's stories you can hear the starved cries of babies. You can see the hungry look in men's eyes. Karl will always be hungry. He will always describe things so that you can see them when you read...Werner is an artist. He paints pictures of people he sees in the park. People will not buy them though. I think it is because of the hungry look. I think if Werner would take the hungry look out of the eyes of the people in his pictures, he could buy more hamburgers and take the hungry look out of his own eyes. Karl and Werner say this would be sacrilege to art."
-Waiting for Nothing, Thomas Kromer

community

Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity: Lauren F. Winner

For most of human history, people of many different cultures have agreed that societies must order certain forms of exchange in order to survive. Communities have ordered language, establishing grammars nad vocabularies that shape how people comunicate with one another; they have ordered the exchange of money, property, and labor; and they have ordered the practice of sex. As essayist, poet, and novelist Wendell Berry has put it, "sex, like any other necessary, precarious, and volatile power that is commonly held, is everybody's business." In the last half-century, however, that assumption has been routed, replaced by the axioms of individualism and autonomy. Indeed, today the idea that sex "is everybody's business" sounds alternately shocking and silly...

...But in the Christian universe, the individual is not the vital unit of ethical meaning. For Christians, the most basic images, metaphors, and signs are corporate, and the basic unit of ethical meaning is the Body, the comunity. Israel experiences covenantal fidelity as a people, and the People of God is a collective- not merely an aggregate of individual persons, each doing his or her own thing, but a body. In the Bible, God elects the People of Israel as a body. He sustains them as a body. And, finally, He redeems them as a body. This talk about community is not metaphorizing. The community has a role i making ethics. Paul makes this clear when he instructs the Galatians to hold one another accountable for sin: "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ."

That passage in Galatians, if we construe it uncharitably, can lead us to envision a community that functions primarily as a police force: Christinas' responsibilities to one another begin and end with peering into other Christians' bedroom windows and sounding the alarm if something illicit is going on.

While one task of any community is to enforce its own codes when they are being violated, perhaps the prior task of the community is to make sense of the ethical codes that are being enforced. Here the community is not so much a cop as storyteller, telling and retelling the foundational stories of the community itself, sustaining the stories that make sense of the community's norms. This storytelling is part of hte working out of God's grace in the church. we, teh church, retell our own story- we do this every time we read scripture, every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, and every time we minister to one another. And that reteling is part of what enables us to live into the story. It is the community that ensures that ethics is not about the dispensing of cut-and-dried answers to moral questions, but that ethics is the story with meaning and power.

personal statement

It seems like so long ago that I started writing this for my med school primary app. Almost exactly a year ago. So much changes in a year. In the last year I have very much come to know God as the Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. And they really are gifts...unearned and good. Receiving from God, I've come to see, is most complete when we can offer back to Him what He gives us and allow Him to continue to shape it.

In the spring of my freshman year at Penn I asked a few friends if they wanted to join me for an organized street clean-up of West Philly. This is the kind of invitation that many feel guilty turning down, but rationalize by saying: "the trash will just reappear the next day," or " you can't do everything to try to fix the world." Both statements are true. Half a day of picking up trash has no lasting effect, and I struggled that week with the feeling that serving others is an overwhelming task- that there are too many people and places in the world that need help.

The next summer I worked at Esperanza, a Spanish-speaking medical clinic in North Philadelphia that serves the poverty-level families of the neighborhood. My days were filled with accompanying doctors in examining rooms to translate, writing and administering quality of well-being surveys to patients, and compiling these responses for the purpose of future grant proposals.

The patients at Esperanza frequently struggle with diabetes, hypertension, malnutrition, skin diseases, depression, and a wide range of STDs. I sat with physicians and observed the process of developing treatment plans for patients, often diagnosed with multiple conditions. I then accompanied the doctor during his time with the patient, translating prescriptions and medical documents into Spanish, explaining, and often re-explaining, the purpose of each drug or nutritional suggestion. Many of the patients could not read or write well enough to complete the needed paperwork without my assistance.

One afternoon I spoke with a woman who had recently emigrated to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico. She had diabetes, but could not find a successful treatment plan. When her lab results came in, I listened as the doctors problem-solved for a better combination and dosage of drugs. What intrigued me about this process was that it required a personal knowledge of the woman's medical history as well as a powerful and intricate scientific knowledge of the biochemistry unique to the drugs prescribed. Even slight changes to dosages affect the patients in individual ways. This problem-solving process required patience and a clear and systematic thought process, as the medications she had previously been prescribed should have been effective. I learned that persistence and patience were key in the medical field, and I called the woman once more to double-check the medication that had previously been prescribed to her. Through our dialogue I learned that she could not read the instructions on the pill bottles and thus had not been correctly administering the medication. I asked the woman to come in so that we could give her a more formal explanation of diabetes, the treatment plan, and the remainder of her lab work, which showed that she was also infected with an STD. When she returned to the clinic the following day, I reviewed each medication and dosage she would be receiving and helped the doctor relay vital information about diabetes to her. I saw that as a physician I would need to know the biochemical consequences of these medications, how they would affect other physical ailments or drugs, what nutritional and environmental factors could be helpful or harmful to treatment plans, and most of all, how to communicate these facts to patients in a way that is clear and compassionate. It took a lot of patience and determination to ask the right questions in order to get accurate medical and personal histories; but it often took even more patience to respond, knowing that I had to put aside complicated scientific explanations and instead deliver accurate information in ways that showed each person dignity and compassion.

After explaining diabetes and the procedure for measuring blood sugar, the doctors and I told her about her STD, Chlamydia. She was clearly upset, vexed by the issue of how she had contracted it. It was difficult and heart-breaking to then explain that if she had been faithful, it was likely that her husband had not been. It was in conversations like these that I marveled at how different genres of medicine fit together. My time spent in research at the Scripps Institute and in science classes at Penn made the process of prescribing medication and explaining the intricacies of the human body to patients in a clinic extremely meaningful.

Further experiences at Esperanza and in my current job with the UCSD clinic have shown me that many patients share similar, heart-rending circumstances. No matter how hard the doctors, nurses, and I work, we find the same stories walking through our doors every day. My time in city clinics has taught me to persist in choosing action, relationship, and communication through the moments I am tempted to settle with simply feeling overwhelmed by the condition of community healthcare. In these clinics I find myself re-living that morning when I cleaned the streets of Philadelphia, and I think back to that summer day at Esperanza when I chose to give 'esperanza,' or 'hope,' to one of my first patients. It was then that I learned that hope, emerging from persistent scientific research melded with sincere human compassion, is not only something worth giving, but what I most desire to bring to patients in tangible and lasting ways.

Life as a Wheel

I said I would expand on my theory stated in "The Great Depression" post that life was like a wheel with six spokes. Here's what I wrote before:

"Let's think life as a wheel with six spokes. The six spokes would be: economics, health, learning, environment [and what it provides for you...often a living], social/sociopolitical, and spiritual. Each of those spokes deserves it's own paragraph [that'll come in the next post]. I believe God cares about each of these spokes. This model would work...except the spiritual spoke is a part of all of the others."

The hub in the middle represents abject, unrelenting, bone-grinding poverty. These people have absolutely nothing. The outer rim of the wheel representes wholeness, adequacy, "enough." Notice I didn't say "wealth" or "riches" or even "abundance". Simply the condition of having one's actual needs met.

Spoke one is economics. If you don't have much money, your options are limited. In Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, the average peasant family ears 140$ USD/year by trying to grow coffee or cotton. They would like a better life for their six, seven, or eight children...to send just one of them to school would cost 50$/year. So they take a deep breath, choose one child, and send him off to learn, tightening down the screws on life's other necessities even further. In daily life a lack of money translates into a lack of options, which is perhaps a more accurate definition of poverty. The world's poor look at a situation and cannot say, "Well, I could pursue choice A, B, or C. Which one makes the most sense? Which wuld turn out best for me and my family?" No, under the circumstances, there is only choice A. That is the reality of poverty.

The next spoke of the wheel is health. A big part of health maintenance of course is getting adequate nutrition. Some people think the earth can't keep up with the food needs of its population. That is not true. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization delcared at a World Food Summit in Rome that the planet could produce enough food for every one of us to have a daily diet of 2720 calories. So why is a third of our world battling obesity and spending large sums to burn off excess calories, while the other two-thirds yearn to get more of them? Poor health is a major component of poverty and not disconnected from the first spoke, economics.

The next spoke is called learning. Poverty is greatly aggravated by the absence of information and acquired skills. Without these, the big world swirls around you like a dust storm, bombarding you from all sides with surprises that you have no way to comprehend or process, let alone overcome. An example: One of the biggest killers in the world today is diarrhea. I didn't just say it was uncomfortable; i said it could take your life. How so? Because the message passed around villages is: obviously, too much water inside of you if it is all coming out. We need to stop drinking for a while and dry out. Then it'll be okay." And children go on dying of dehydration by the hundreds of thousands. The beautiful thing is, an educated child in the developing world becomes a multiplier of learning, creating a ripple effect.

The fourth spoke is called environment. This is no sideline issue. Ivoery Coast has cut down and exported so much timber that it competes in volume with Brazil, a country twenty times as large. Since 1975, Ivory Coast has suffered the highest deforestation rate in the world. The herds of elephants, lions, hippos, leopards, antelopes, and many other animals have ben decimated as a result, which has changed things for humans as well. Haiti too is in ecological disaster. The sun beats down on the bare, parched earth and radiates upward again. Rain clouds form over the land, are driven up by the head, and then pushed off toward the sea, there to drop their precous moisture where thirsty people cannot access it.

The fifth spoke is social/sociopolitical. Poverty is, among other things, a functio nof being powerles in the hall of governments and the social structures that administer our lives. If you are fairly sure your vote won't count and that whatever taxes you pay will only end up financing a war or maybe increasing the governor's personal fortune, it is very easy to get discouraged and become fatalistic. When jobs and infrastructure improvements go inevitably to the tribe or region of the party in power, while other sections of the population are ignored, resentment grows. Corruption bleeds the meager resources that average citizens can muster, making it harder and harder for them to get on their feet. Nothing saps teh peasant's initiative faster than a sense that the system is stacked against him.

The final spoke of the wheel is called spiritual. Religious bondage can suffocate the poor in excruciating ways. This is true for those who forgo the nutrients of a meal because they feel they must obey the witch doctor's directive to sacrifice it to ward off evil, or when neighbors decline to help one another because they feel it will interfere with their karma. The starving child in the street, they say, is working out some issue from a previou slifetime, and so that process must run its course.

Jesus asked one time, "what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?" All the dollars adn euros and pesos and shillings and rupees in the world will not equal the peace that comes from knowing a God who loves you. He's not out to get you or destroy you. He is, in fact, on your side. In fact, far from being peripheral, the spiritual aspect is essential to the other five spokes of the wheel.

Does God get involved with econonics- absolutely- Proverbs 14:23- all hard world brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Scripture is full of instruction about money and labor.

Does God care about health- absolutly.

Does God care about education- yes, his entire revelation to us comes in the form of a book, which he fully expects us to read and to help others read. Teaching is a gift of the spirit

Does God care about the environment- check out Psalm 8- it is his earth, after all, he made it in the first place. He put this planet together to serve the needs of his highest creation, human beings. When we interrupt or currupt the systems that should sustain us, he is not happy. He wants to see the created order restored to its highest and best uses.

Does God care about our sociopolitical world? Definitely. Poverty and injustice break the heart of God. He warns us in Proverbs 22:22-23: do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them.

If we are seroius about helping overcome poverty, about moving people from the dark hole in the center to the state of wholeness ath the perimeter, we must care about all areas of their lives. It is not enough to simply favor one spoke. It's what makes community so extremely and unswervingly important. No one can care about all of those spokes alone, and i don't think we're called to do that. We refelct the image of God individually when we care about the whole, but we reflect the image of God communally when we actively care for the whole.

A Snipit from Last Year's Journal

At retreat last week, Shannon had us all spend one hour doing some sort of service. We had been talking a bit about the scene in which Jesus washes His disciples’ feet, and how had they ultimately refused for that to happen, they totally missed the point of what He was all about. Without them being able to receive that from Jesus, and receiving it both on a literal physical level and knowing what it felt like emotionally for that to happen, they wouldn’t have been able to follow the next command of continuing to wash one another’s feet. Practically speaking, it was pretty gross thing to do. But after being on the receiving end of it, they had a more real motivation to follow that command. Jesus didn’t give them this random command to go wash people’s feet, but first had his disciples receive it, so that they could go out authentically.

So following that, Shannon challenged us each to spend the next hour serving someone(s). Initially I think I was like…ummm, here? What can I possibly do in one room with 50 other Christians all trying to serve one another? So as a group we started, somewhat awkwardly, to think of ways to serve one another. Some people wrote cards, gave massages, taught others something, listened, prayed, cleaned, talked…etc. I think the list of things to do was surprisingly long, at least for me, after about 15 minutes of time doing that. But it created an interesting atmosphere, because after a while, we all realized that for the service to actually ‘work,’ people had to receive from those around them. And when there are about 50 people in a room, relatively limited in their potential acts of service due to time and place, pretty much everyone had to receive from someone else, in that hour, in addition to serving.

And it caught me off guard when my initial response to that receiving was ‘no, this is my time for serving, i’m not allowed to receive now.’ So then God was like, ‘well Stef, you missed the point too.’ It isn’t possible to serve in a room full of people not willing to receive. And it makes the service frustrating. And I feel like that might be how our relationship with God is a lot of the time. Like we’ll receive up to a certain point, and then feel like, ok, you’ve given me enough, I have to give back.

The setting for that hour was one that modeled I think how I would picture the phrase ‘heaven on earth’ lived out. The service was creative, thoughtful, communal, unifying, loving, and sometimes not how I think we typically picture ‘service.’ So what I mean by that….you know that feeling of joy you get when you give a friend a present or card or something that you’re really excited for them to open and see?

And I think I question often if that feeling belongs in acts of service…if it means I’m doing it for myself, to get those feelings. And sometimes I think that’s true for everyone- we’ve all got hidden motivations and impurities in our actions a lot of the time. But this hour was good to remind me that someone else receiving my service, and me allowing myself to be excited for them, or happy that they liked it, is often me allowing myself to receive their service to me of receiving. So…allowing them to serve me by receiving their joy that came about because I tried to serve them. I don’t know if that came out right. But let’s face it, we like to make people happy, and that isn’t a bad thing. And so following that, it is then necessary to receive from other people, to allow them to have that felling of joy so that ultimately, that receiving from others serves them. And yeah, like anything, that can and does get distorted. But in that hour, it felt right, and it was very cool to feel service and receiving come together, and see them coexist not only within the same hour, but sometimes in the same few minutes. And that’s what I think helped define friendship with God and with people for me.

And in the world of non-retreat-time, it is really easy to get overwhelmed by the needs of the people we see. Actually, it is really possible to get overwhelmed by the needs of 50 Christians in a room for an hour also. And that really clearly reminded me that that feeling of overwhelmingness (that a word?) can overpower the original reason for service- that it isn’t to meet the needs of everyone and lift them up, but to seek and follow through with ways of serving that lift up Jesus, imitate Him, and create a spirit of service that lasts when there is overwhelming need, when the service isn’t overtly fun, when it’s risky, when it’s hard, when it’s washing someone’s gross and dirty feet.

The Great Depression

when you hear that phrase, The Great Depression, what do you think of?

some words that come to mind: crash, 1929, dust bowl, unemployment, poverty...etc.

I'm taking an English seminar this semester on The Great Depression. Authors write about it with such emotion and passion, exlaiming the terrors of those years and blessing the future with hope that such years will never be seen again. T.S. Eliot in his poems goes as far as to suggest that it might have been better if everyone had just started off poor and then they wouldn't have had to go through the pain of losing their possessions and livlihood during the Depression.

Well, guess what? Those years are here again. They have been here for many years. Though I guess that depends on how you define "here." There are people who have lived in their own "Great Depression" for years, for their whole life. Heck, there are countries that have lived that. Sure, there are lots of reasons that the American Great Depression was unique, and it deserves a place in history books. Older folks who think back to the depression still shudder when they think about the hardship endured then. Where are the poeple shuddering for the hardship going on in the inner cities now? In countries whose modern histories could be labeled "The Great Depression?"

"It's not the same," we say, "because that country isn't America or those people aren't really a part of America. They were never the great sophisticated and industrious country that we were so therefore their current situation isn't as much of a downfall. They're used to it. It's just another one of the differences between America and other places. They're supposed to be downtrodden and we're supposed to be a superpower. That's how the world works."

America had less than 30 years of 'depression' and we have a whole genre of literature to go along with it. We have classes and textbooks about it. What if those years of depression were multiplied by 10 and then 10 again, and again, until they took up the span of a country's post-colonial history. There are millions in America who have felt and lived the emotion and hardship of the Great Depression for their whole lives. They've been jobless, hit by unfortunate circumstances, forced to move around, and sure, sometimes they've made some bad choices. But haven't we all? Why don't my bad choices affect me the way the bad choices of minority groups or poor people's do?

Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, and the command stretches us to consider who our neighbor is, ultimatlely expanding our body of "easy neighbors." What would it look like if our country took on that challenge? We would be able to say then, that the Great Depression is "here" because it is with our neighbors, whom we love. Our Great Depression looks puny compared to what millions go through every day. That is not meant to minimize the American Depression, but rather to maximize all of the others. What would countries like Rwanda or Darfur give to be able to say they just had two decades of Depression but then pulled out of it. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to look back in history and pinpoint the beginning and end of the 'bad years.' Poverty, I think, comes from the inability to do that. From the inability to look back on your life and see clear turning points and change. In daily life a lack of money translates into a lack of options, which is perhaps a more accurate defintion of poverty. Without options, it's hard to have distinct change or turning points.

Let's think life as a wheel with six spokes. The outer rim of the wheel represents wholeness, adequacy, "enough." Simply the condition of having one's actual needs met. The six spokes would be: economics, health, learning, environment [and what it provides for you...often a living], social/sociopolitical, and spiritual. Each of those spokes deserves it's own paragraph [that'll come in the next post]. I believe God cares about each of these spokes. This model would work...except the spiritual spoke is a part of all of the others.

At its very core, poverty is a mind-set that goes far beyond the tragic circumstances. It is the cruel, destructive message that gets whispered into the ear of millions by the enemy Satan himself: "Give up! You don't matter. Nobody cares about you. Look around you: Things are terrible. Always have been, always will be. Think back. Your grandfather was a failure. Your parents couldn't protect or take care of you. Now it's your turn. You, too, wil fail. So just give up!"

"Unless there is an intervension of love and hope, these seeds of apathy lead inevitably downward to an even lowe rdeath sentence called fatalism The very word stinks of death. It is the bottom- aslow as a human being can sink. When the human spirit becomes truly fatalistic, it is almost impossible to retrieve. This is complete and utter poverty, the end of the road."
-Why doesn't Poverty just go away?

Top Ten ways to get thrown out of chemistry lab

10. Pretend an electron got stuck in your ear, and insist on describing the sound to others.
9. Give a cup of liquid nitrogen to a classmate and ask, "Does this taste funny to you?"
8. Consistently write three atoms of potassium as "KKK."
7. Mutter repeatedly, "Not again... not again... not again."
6. When it's very quiet, suddenly cry out, "My eyes!"
5. Deny the existence of chemicals.
4. Begin pronouncing everything your immigrant lab instructor says exactly the way he/she says it.
3. Casually walk to the front of the room and urinate in a beaker.
2. Pop a paper bag at the crucial moment when the professor is about to pour the sulfuric acid
1. Show up with a 55-gallon drum of fertilizer and express an interest in federal buildings.

ok, so these may not be from some amazing piece of literature...haha...but they ARE a part of my new hall decorations :)

To a God Unknown

To a God Unknown: John Steinbeck
[the whole book is good...here's the epigraph]

He is hte giver of breath, and strength is his gift
The high Gods revere his commandments
Hi sshadow is life, his shadow is death;
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

Through His might He became lord of the living
and glittering world
And he rules the world and the men and the beasts
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

From His strength the mountains take being, and
the sea, they say,
And the distant river;
And these are his body and his two arms.
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

He made the sky and the earth, and His will
fixed their places,
Yet they look to Him and tremble.
The risen sun shines forth over Him.
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

He looked over the waters which stored His power
and gendered the sacrifice
He is God over Gods.
Who is He to whome we shall offer our sacrifice?

May He not hurt us, He who made earth,
Who made the sky and the shining sea?
Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice.
~Veda

Too Small To Ignore

Too Small To Ignore- Why the Least of These Matters Most: Dr. Wess Stafford

"I learned in my childhood in Africa that a child may be born in poverty, but poverty is never born in a child. The worst aspects of poverty are not the deplorable outward conditions but rather the erosion and eventual destruction of hope and therefore dreams. When a child gives up hope, dreams are forever shattered. With lost dreams goes the potential and ultimate impact that a child might have had."

"The word community is more than just a gray sociological descriptor. It is a God term, designed by the Creator of children to water their souls and enhance their spirits as they grow. To ignore this is to sow seeds of dysfunction and future trauma. To welcome the young into the center of our lives is to enrich not only them but ourselves as well."

"Americans spend more for garbage bags each year than 90 of the world's 210 countries spend for everything!"

"God's kingdom deserves excellence. It just doesn't need the conquest of anyone except Satan...competition should be our servant, a mere tool to drive us toward excellence."

"An even greater challenge is to receive graciously, especially from the hands of the poor. The Scriptures teach that it is more blessed to give than to receive. In my experience, it is also easier to give than to receive. We in the developed world are generally very awkward about it. If there is one great pearl I have witnessed in my years of ministry among the poor, it is their ability to be truly and joyfully grateful."

"Any response to the needs of the poor certainly involves money somewhere along the line. But it is not the cure-all by any means. Billions have been spent by governments and nonprofit organizations alike to relieve poverty. At the time my family and I just returned to America, President Lyndon Johnson was aggressively pushing a national "War on Poverty." It did some good, but it certainly didn't solve the problem forever. Today, forty years later, one of every six American children still lives below the poverty line.
Worldwide, it is more like one out of overy two. Think about that for a minute. This gobe, with all its resources and efforts at getting organized to meet the need, still fails to provide adequately for almost half of its precious little ones. On the test of caring for the next generations, we're scoring a lowly 54 percent, which wil get you an F at any school."

"Unless there is an intervention of love and hope, these seeds of apathy lead inevitably downward to an eve nlower death sentence called fatalism. The very word stinks of death. It is the bottom- as low as a human being can sink. When the human spirit becomes truly fatalistic, it is almost impossible to retrieve. This is complete and utter poverty, the end of the road."

Contemplation in a World of Action. Part 3 [final]

Contemplation in a World of Action: Thomas Merton

"Where am I going to look for the world first if not in myself?"

"If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in its living ongoing events. To choose the world is not then merely a pious admission that the world is acceptable because it comes from the hand of God. It is first of alll an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, in history and in time: in my time, which is the present. To choose the world is to choose to do the work I am capable of doing, in collaboration with my brother, to make the world better, more free, more just, more liable, more human."

"The great problem of our time is not to formulate clear answers to neat theoretical questions but to tackle the self destructive alienation of man in a society dedicated in theory to human values and in practice to the pursuit of power for its own sake."

"He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. There is nothing more tragic in the modern world than the misuse of power and action to which men are driven by their own Faustian misunderstandings and misapprehensions. We have more power at our disposal today than we have ever had, and yet we are more alienated nad estranged from the inner ground of meaning and of love than we have ever been."

"If our prayer is a deep and grace-inspired desire for newness of life- and not the mere blind attachment to what has always been familiar nad "safe"-God will act in us and through us to renew the Chuch by preparing, i nprayer, what we cannot yet imagine or understand. In this way our prayer and faith today will be oriented toward the future which we ourselves may never see fully realize on earth."

"Prayer is freedom and affirmation growing out of thingness into love. Prayer is the flowering of our inmost freedom, in response to the Word of God. Prayer is not only dialogue with God: it is the communion of our freedom with his ultimate freedom, his infinite spirit. It is the elevation of our limited freedom into hte infinite freedom of the divine spirit, and of the divine love."

"You who are read this are yourselves studying possibilities of renewal. Let me encourage you as a brother to forget about other people who are supposed to help you do it. Do it yourself with the help of the Holy Spirit. Find out what you are really looking for in the spiritual life. What are you seeking? Are you seeking security or are you seeking God? Are you seeking pleasant experiences or are you seeking truth?"

"But we always have to remember that all problems are illusory without some basis of natural maturity and a natural human growth. It is very important to stress these natural values. We must constantly emphasize the importance of growing up. Needless to say, we must not go to the other extreme and make everything an intense psychological problem. There are real religious problems which are not just psychological proglems; but they may be more rare than we realize. Many religious are just not mature enough to have an authentic religious crisis!"

"We get so involved in all these intellectual and abstract discussions that we forget the basic- this call of God's love to us, urging us to love him in return and to open our hearts to him and to give him our hearts so that he may fill them with love and faith. So let us then do this. Let us pray for faith, let us pray for an increase of faith and give ourselves, totally, completely, and with perfect confidence, to the God who loves us and calls us to his love."

Contemplation in a World of Action, Part 2

Contemplation in a World of Action: Thomas Merton

"Man has a responsibility to his own time, not as if he could seem to stand outside it and donate various spiritual and material benefits to it from a position of compassionate distance, but man has a responsibility to find himself where he is, namely in his own proper time and in his place, in the history to which he belongs and to which he must inevitably contribute either his resopnses or his evasions, either truth adn act or slogan and gesture."

"It would prehaps be more truly monastic to say that the monk who is effectively liberated from the servitudes and confusions of "the world" in its negative and sterile sense ought to be enabled by that very fact to be more truly present to his world and to his tie by love, by compassion, by understanding, by tolerance, by a deep and Christlike hope."

"We would not seek God unless he were not already " in us," and to go "beyond ourselves" is just to find the inner ground of our being where he is present to us as our creative source, as the fount of redemptive light and grace."

"The real function of discipine is not to provide us with maps but to sharpen our own sense of direction so that when we really get going we can travel without maps."

"Obedience then becomes an expression of hte new life and the new creation which restores the simplicity and peace of paradise to a communal life in whcih each is the servant of all, and each finds fulfillment in a meaningful service of love that is inspired and vivified by the presence of Christ in his Spirit. Obedience is in truth a dialogue between two responsibilities- that of thesubject and that of the superior- and i ncarrying out his superior's command the subject cannot allow himself to abdicate moral responsibility and act as a mere utensil. It is also a dialogue between two forms of service."

"Humility, poverty, and love. It is by this spirit of apostolic renunciation that the monk, in spite of his essential solitude, can be open to the needs and to the anguish of hte world and hence exercise his apostolate which is above all the apostolate of understanding and of compassion."

"Is the contemplative life to be considered a state of interior recollection and an affective absorption in God considered as Infinite Love, or is it a resopnse to the concrete Word of God manifesting to us his will and his love not only for ourselves as individuals but for the whole family of man redeemed by the Cross of Christ...Is the cloistered life merely to escape from the troubles and conflicts of the world to a condition of security and peace in which we "rest" and "taste" the consolations of intimacy with God? Or does it mean sharing the anguish and hope of a world in crisis in which millions struggle for the barest essentials of human existence?"

"Openness works two ways. On both sides there is giving and receiving. The result is, or should be, a real increase of charity, a greater love of the conteplative for the world created and redeemed by God, a greater love of the noncloistered person for God, found and experienced more deeply in temporary contact with the cloister."

"What people seek today is not so much the organized, predigested routine of conferences and exercises, but an opportunity to be quiet, to reflect, and to discuss in informal, spontaneous and friendly encounters the things they have on their minds."