Narnia Movie: Edmund's betrayal

Re: Concerning Edmund's sin/betrayal.

I think that Edmund chose a lesser good over a greater good. In some way he called good evil, but in another way he simply exaggerated an evil within his siblings, especially Peter, and made them seem worse while at the same time diminishing his own evil (and ignoring it). He had a grudge against Peter. He was already out of sorts because of needing to leave his family. In the movie he rushed back into the house to get his father's picture. He was feeling abandoned. These feelings of being abandoned (father at war, mother sending them away) were legitimate. George MacDonald might call these things "lawful excuses". Perhaps. So much in Edmund's favor.

What isn't excuseable is his tormenting Lucy, and denying Lucy (as one could say "isolating her") once he realizes that she is correct, and enters Narnia.

The question for me is: When does Edmund effectively "fall" in the story? Is it when he belittles Lucy before he enters Narnia? Is it when he "falls" for the Witch's temptation, just listening to her, not trusting his conscience or the inner voice that was warning him? Turkish Delight in itself is not evil, or immoral, but it becomes evil or an avenue for evil when it is chosen over conscience and caution. He is seduced by pleasure. He eats and eats: his gluttony is an outward and visible sign of a growing inward and hidden depravity. The White Witch tempts further by letting him believe (but does he REALLY BELIEVE, or does he once again lie to himself?) that he would become her prince, and eventually rule?

What is ironic, is that he truly was destined to rule Narnia, but the ORDER was completely essential. The order he imagined (or that the witch offered) was to rule through her and have his siblings serve him. The Lie: He wasn't to serve anyone. The ORDER established by the prophesy and Aslan was for him to rule through ASLAN, and to be subservient to the High King, Peter. His rule was meant to be one of obedience to the True King, and the High King, and one of service.

In this way, a good (his destiny to be king) was twisted to become an evil (his imagined rule over his siblings through the White Witch). It is interesting how this theme comes up again in the Silver Chair when Rilian becomes ensnared by the Emerald Witch/Serpent and almosts invades Narnia on the Emerald Witch's behalf. He would have ruled Narnia (his rightful dominion) yet under false pretenses. His rightful rule would have be replaced by a wrongful rule. In essence, had he not be freed from the magic spell, he would have usurped his own throne.....

Christmas

I think ever since I was young I have felt a tension during the holiday season. Now it's in vogue to even complain about using the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas" when referrring to this season. Many evangelicals decry the secularization of just about everything within the public sector. It concerns me, too. But sometimes evangelicals just want to cling to forms or words without embodying substance.

The problem within our culture runs very deep. It's not just a split between the secular culture and its icons and the Christian culture and its icons. The secular culture promotes: Santa (usurped from the original Christian culture, for Santa used to be Saint Nicholas, a fourth century saint known for his generosity); reindeer; large, fat snowmen; snowflakes and stars; the colors green and red. The Christian culture remembers the manger scene: idealized with manger, and infant Lord who doesn't cry, well-robed wise men and humble shepherds, feminine angels with wings, halos and white robes. But behind the familiar scenes, issues, icons and stereotypes reigns the Living God moving through history, creating, restoring, redeeming, and transforming.

Is there a reason to fret? Obviously the lure of consumerism, and the Call of the Mall entices us to become jaded and cynical about the season. But after a few decades of the same old complaints, I've just let go. I don't bother with complaining, or giving in to it all. I just ignore it. Or at least I ignore it most of the time.

Discussion vs. Dialogue in the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate

Recently my brothers and I had a most interesting and thoughtful exchange of e-mail posts on my previous post: Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I came out supporting a modified intelligent design position, and they favored evolutionary positions that do not preclude or exclude their Christian beliefs. One of the things I came away with is the desire to make sure that everyone does their best to be understood fully, and to fully understand the position of others. Too often rhetoric and innuendo is employed to manipulate conversations or discussions in your favor, casting one's "opponent" in a disparaging light, not because one is seeking truth, but because one is trying to "win". I have been fortunate to come from a family that doesn't see the blessing or advantage for anyone to "win" at the expense of the other.

This past summer while attending a Science Inquiry conference sponsored by the Oregon Science Teachers Association, I was intrigued by the differentiation between the concepts of discussion and dialogue. Discussion has similar roots with the words percussion and concussion. They all have to do with hitting something. In concussion you get hit in the head, percussion you hit an instrument to generate sound. In discussion, you hit others with your ideas. The attitude in a discussion is to argue about ideas. One seeks to win the argument, put forward the best offense, catch your opponent in the weakness of their ideas, and drive your point home. The problem is, if you're concerned with having the best offense, you really end up being offensive.
A dialogue, however, is only possible when true relationships are upheld as the best means to finding truth. Truth in one's ideas is only possible if it arises out of the relationship of mutual respect, and trust in each other's integrity. In reality, then, one can't have a dialogue with just anyone. Dialogue commences when both people, or all those involved, desire to build the relationship between them MORE than convincing the other person of their rightness or correctness. The search for intellectual truth or the trueness of one's ideas arises out of the justice and fairness of one's relationship with others, the trueness or truth of one's being for others, for even the person one's "argument" is against.

Now in the dialogue that we had about Evolution and Intelligent Design, I found that we actually were very close in agreement at least 90% of the time. I still would like a more open acceptance of the Intelligent Design thoughts and positions to be discussed in upper division classes, if not at the high school level, then surely at the college level when Evolution is taught. I also felt that there can be and should be a distinction made between Evolution (capital E) and evolution (small e). Evolution (capital E), in my mind, refers to the whole-sale acceptance of Naturalism (or Scientific Naturalism, as my brother proposed) that maintains the randomness, and complete unguided or non-theistic nature of Nature: It is the Whole Show, and God neither exists nor creates. Evolution (small e), on the other hand, is the description and accompanying theory of gradual change over time that allows for direction and purpose and creation by God, although for scientific purposes (not religious purposes) God is not "figured into the equation" as a quantifiable or identifiable entity or director. Science, being limited by empiricism, does not try to prove or disprove God. It can do neither, and desires to do neither. It's purpose is to articulate natural laws, not define, reveal or encapsulate the Legislator of those natural laws. It is for those reasons that many Christians who believe in the Creation of the Earth, still uphold the theory of evolution (small e) without being hard-core atheistic Evolutionists or Naturalists (likewise a capital N). These distinctions are my own, and if they are helpful in the ongoing debate/dialogue, so be it. That is my intention.

Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism: Evolution or Intelligent Design?

This is the almost the same article/post as one posted on my other blog: Javascripture.

Not long ago a couple events coincided within the span of one week: an article on Naturalism and Intelligent Design written by my brother (a pastor) in his church’s newsletter, and a challenge from a fellow small group member who is working on an article on what it means to be made in the image of God. Perhaps to some people the issues seem unrelated, but I think they are related. An excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall, as well as a few excerpts from C. S. Lewis’s Miracles have formed some of my thinking, as well as a sincere desire to address the ongoing debate within public schools whether to allow Intelligent Design theories to be taught within our Science classes. I hope this hasn’t scared you away, as a reader. Perhaps you’re wondering which camp I’ll land myself in. I hope that is enough to keep you interested.

The first couple chapters of Genesis are considered the Creation chapters. In much abbreviated language the Creation of the Earth is depicted, along with the especial Creation of humanity as residents of Earth. Some people might hope I would say figurative or metaphorical language instead of abbreviated, but I don’t think those words would be accurate. A metaphor is figurative language that compares two quite different things by mentioning one particular quality they both appear to possess. To say: “Zach is a cheetah on the track” would be to use a metaphor indicating Zach is a fast runner, not to imply he’s a great cat. However to say that “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind’ and it was so.” (Genesis 1:24) is not to use a metaphor. It is to say, however, that these creatures: namely the entire Animal Kingdom (and all subsequent phyla, genera and species), were created intentionally and specifically by someone outside of Nature. I say that the Genesis narrative uses abbreviated language because it doesn’t intend to be scientific in the least. Indeed the order of events is highly suspect as well. The creation of plants (on day three) could hardly have preceded the creation of planets (on day four) as well as another particularly important celestial sphere, the sun, in so far as we are knowledgeable that plants manufacture their own food through photosynthesis, a process entirely dependent on light: particularly sunlight. Immediately the reader might surmise that I am fully entrenching myself in the Naturalist/ evolutionary camp as I call into question the scientific soundness of the Genesis account. To which I would wholeheartedly assent that the Bible in no way purports to be a scientific manual. But I do not think it meant to be metaphorical here either. It was simply stating, in massively abbreviated form, that there was and continues to be an intelligent design behind Nature and the things that have come into being. To that I likewise wholeheartedly concur.

The Genesis account goes on to say that humanity is created in the image of God: Humanity is the Imago Dei. “Then God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: “There is no transition here from somewhere or other, there is new creation. This has nothing to do with Darwinism: quite independently of this man remains the new, free, undetermined work of God. We have no wish at all to deny man’s connection with the animal world: on the contrary. But we are very anxious not to lose the peculiar relationship of man and God in the process.” (Creation and Fall, McMillan Co., 1959, p.36) The Genesis story tells about the purpose of humanity’s creation, not biologically how it came about. The Genesis passage speaks of humanity as being given originally a unique gift by God, unique among all the creatures. We are granted a relationship and responsibility “to rule” over the rest of creation, and we are created in His image. What that “image” is exactly, has been debated for years: our freedom of will, our ability to create, our ability to love sacrificially, our possessing a soul or spirit are among various interpretations, none that are exclusive of one another.

But not long after receiving this gift of creation and formation in His image, being God’s reflection, humanity decided to reject the gift and grab a position, a power, an ability. We said we will be like God “knowing good and evil.” This acquisition of knowledge was and continues to be a usurpation—a desire to be equal with God. It is a desire to wrest our future from the Creator so that we might establish an alternative based on our ambition. We act as if we are like God and act as if God does not exist, or is inconsequential at best. In some primordial past we became “sicut deus”: like God by our own power, lifting up the acquisition of knowledge, and judging between good and evil. Nonetheless, our original creation in the image of God was/is something unique among the created order, something that sets us apart and now, unfortunately, (through a primal estrangement called “the Fall”), at odds with the rest of the natural order.

The issue of “imago dei” (being created in the image of God) leads inevitably to the present controversy in our society between a creation-centered view of the Earth and a naturalist-evolutionary-based view of the Earth.

Within our schools and universities we have two competing world views currently embroiled in the science debate: intelligent design versus naturalism/evolution. Both of these viewpoints or positions of inquiry begin with certain presuppositions. The naturalist scientific community has denounced intelligent design as pseudo-science that is being used by fundamentalist Christians to push a literal interpretation of the Bible. The creationist supernaturalist scientific community has denounced evolution as a presumptuous, anti-religious theory rife with gaps in proof and logic that flies in the face of the facts that cry out evidence that there is order and design, balance and benefits, cooperation and complexity within Nature, on the Earth, throughout all living creatures. Such complexity, interdependence and balance cannot be adequately explained without the presence of a Creator Whose purposes aren’t simply random.

I will be frank in stating I find myself apparently with feet in both camps. Some might say my heart dwells in the Creation camp and my analytical mind in the Evolution camp. I could be denounced as a fence sitter. Biblical literalists might ask how I can believe dinosaurs lived 160 million years ago and uphold scientific theories dating the Earth’s age at over 3 billion years. You see, I’m not a Young Earth adherent. But at the same time I am a supernaturalist, not a naturalist. In other words I don’t believe that all that is in Nature (the evident world comprehended empirically through our five senses) came about by itself, randomly, haphazardly, accidentally, only by chance and through an interminably lucky process of natural selection.

A Naturalist believes that every finite thing or event must be explicable in terms of the Total System (which we call Nature.) In other words only Nature exists. Any cause happens from within the system. “The Naturalist believes that a great process, or ‘becoming,’ exists ‘on its own’ in space and time, and that nothing else exists… The Supernaturalist believes that one Thing (Being) exists on its own and has produced the framework of space and time and the procession of systematically connected events which fill them. This framework, and this filling, he calls Nature.” (C.S.Lewis, Miracles, p. 14). Now it may be argued that I have taken my thoughts completely away from Science and dove head first into Philosophy. This is true, but so have many scientists, because they cannot succeed in doing their work in a “vacuum.” To be an evolutionist, for example, is to be a philosopher, of sorts. One may find many separate fossils that show various bone structures, impressions of feathers or scales, and unwittingly—or very wittingly—desire to fill in the gaps with assumptions of mutations, gradual change and natural selection of the most efficient mutations, that most fortunately keep getting passed on to subsequent progeny. Finding and describing the fossils is science, while speculating and prescribing a necessarily blind, unguided chance randomness that links two separate fossils is philosophy, just as speculating and prescribing a necessarily intelligent design guided not by chance but by a purposeful Designer is philosophy. I would submit that the desire of scientists to exclude philosophical wrestling with the implications of fossil records diminishes scientific inquiry rather than purifies it.

Much of the reading I have done on Intelligent Design (particularly by Michael Behe) is not original research, but a description of multiple biological processes that must necessarily coincide in order for a function, such as vision, to occur. He calls this irreducible complexity. Although I don’t think these interpretations of scientific findings proves intelligent design in any definitive, undeniable way, yet I do affirm they are enough for me to nod my head in agreement: life remains a mystery, but there are enough fingerprints strewn across the Earth to point to the Culprit of Creation, Who dodges us, hides behind the Periodic Table and crouches within Relativity and Entropy.

Is Intelligent Design Science? It all depends on what individual scientists will allow into the dialogue. So long as scientists see inquiry as a linear, lock-step process of question, hypothesis, plan, observation and analysis, then perhaps no. But once scientists allow questions of purpose, as well as reflections on complexity, balance, and intuition, then perhaps the evolutionists won’t fear the proponents of intelligent design. It can not be denied that many scientists do believe in God, but do they believe in Creation? Do they believe that evolutionary processes may be an explanation for how an ageless God tweaks His Creation over time, much like an artist’s style my ‘evolve’ or change over time, simply because the artist desires to try something new. Conjecture? Most definitely, but it makes more sense to me than assuming every change is random and accidental simply because I’m not allowed to mention God.

For instance, how could an eye just blindly evolve? Evolutionists say that it started with photosensitive cells that mutated to primitive depressions in the head near the simultaneously evolving brain. From there successive mutations added increasingly beneficial components (while not having any other component lost through unfortunate mutations…) Consider, however, that is it possible for this to happen over countless millions of years, creatures holding onto the possibility that eyesight will eventually be achieved once some random cells mutate into the lens, and others mutate into the iris, the cornea, the vitreous humor, and the retina complete with rods and cones. All must coincide, exist at once, simultaneously for vision to occur. The evolutionists insist that successive stages of “improving vision” must have occurred as successive beings needed differing degrees of vision. But such reasoning is philosophy. It’s assuming that accidental mutations have left us with so many benefits, and every other mutation (those involving literally millions of dead-ends) must have all died off, without fossil records. Where are the fossil records of millions of botched mutations: those with a tenth of an eye, or those that made it a bit further with an eighth of an eye, or those lucky mutations that lasted 100 million years with a half an eye? And how did the eye evolve? How did the body ‘know’ that things could be perceived visually, that there are things out there worth seeing, in focus, and in color? To be bombarded with photons does not mean one will evolve eyes. Earthly creatures have been bombarded with cosmic rays, x-rays, infrared rays, radio waves and a broad assortment of electromagnetic radiation for just as long (say a billion years) and no cells have ever mutated to perceive these things. Such belief in the beneficence of the purely accidental and capricious takes a leap of faith that the theist has no trouble taking because the theist believes there is a Designer, a Creator, a God Who desires and intends vision for some of His creatures—especially all the moving ones that aren’t microscopic. In all of this I have only considered one organ. Imagine all the organs together, which must simultaneously work together: circulation system, neural system, lymphatic, skeletal, digestive systems, and so on. It is from these reflections that the theory of irreducible complexity arises. This doesn’t even begin to tackle the grand questions: How did life begin? How does it continue? How does the arrangement of four molecules in DNA lead to textures of skin, colors of hair, the heart that pumps, the bile that oozes, one’s ability to laugh, the tone of a singer, or the wrath of a despot?

Science in itself can be simply an intellectual discipline used to efficiently discover the way things work in the natural world. Obviously Science isn’t meant to discover the way things work in the supernatural world. Scientists, however, get into trouble when they disavow the supernatural world, and say that only the empirically perceived natural world exists, ala our five senses, then try to relegate to the natural world all cause and effect, building systems to explain how things work while implying they have figured out why things work. If evolution (as a theory of gradual change over time) can simply be used by scientists as a descriptive, heuristic device that outlines biological adaptations within species and genera, and how creatures are related to each other, then well and good. But once scientists begin imagining a planet (unique within the cosmos) in which this all necessarily happened by accident, and that ‘happy coincidences’ for the mega-trillionth time keep occurring that are not ever intended or designed by a Maker, leaving us with a most remarkable, but completely accidental Earth, then evolution ceases to be a descriptive theory and becomes a prescriptive theory. Naturalism takes the place of theism as a belief system that drives and prescribes knowledge, filling in all the blanks and gaps with assumptions that somehow continuing evolution weeded out all the bad mutations (called natural selection) and kept only the good mutations.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “No, it is not Christianity which need fear the giant universe. It is those systems which place the whole meaning of existence in biological or social evolution on our own planet. It is the creative evolutionist….who should tremble when he looks up at the night sky. For he really is committed to a sinking ship. He really is attempting to ignore the discovered nature of things, as though by concentrating on the possibly upward trend in a single planet he could make himself forget the inevitable downward trend in the universe as a whole, the trend to low temperatures and irrevocable disorganization. For entropy is the real cosmic wave, and evolution only a momentary tellurian ripple within it.” (God in the Dock, W.B.Eerdmans, 1970).

But that is enough for now. Just some random ramblings in the continuing dialogue? Or did I design them that way? Someone might quip, it doesn’t matter, they aren’t intelligent anyway. To which I smile, and reply, “Perhaps.”

God's Politics

"Will values be used as wedges to further divide up or bridges to bring us together--to find common ground by moving to higher ground?" --God's Politics, Jim Wallis (Sojourners), p. xvii

As a Christian I recognize the Constitution's first 10 amendments as a secular insistence on rights while failing to list corresponding responsibilities. After having participated in a six week study through First Baptist church (McMinnville, OR.) that reflected on Jim Wallis's book, God's Politics, I have been questioning more deeply what is meant by Christian values, and family values. I fear most of us don't truly wrestle with understanding and arriving at firm values, based in an orthodox, historical Christian faith, that embraces the paradoxes of truth, and the inexorable demands of authentic, redemptive, consuming LOVE. Many American evangelicals simply spout a canned Republican line, and have let someone else do their thinking and theologizing. I like Jim Wallis's periodical assessment of much of current evangelical, right-wing thinking: its just bad theology.

So how does a good theology, a reflective, faithful, sacrificial theology work, that desires the redemption of the world, and takes seriously Jesus's actions, strategies and teachings? I have decided to reflect and theologize practically: Let me propose an example using an actual cherished American value: car ownership. Now some may object immediately, and say that car ownership is not a "value," but I would say that it is, because obviously since we spend so much of our time purchasing, servicing, fueling and driving our vehicles, we value them. We value what they look like, how we look in them, how others look at us and regard us when we are driving in them or parking them in our driveways for others to see. We are quite ready to pay whatever price it takes to keep them on the road. They are valuable to us, therefore they are a value. We, as a society, value automobiles. Although we would describe this as an economic value or personal taste value, it can not help also being of moral value.

Let's see how one reasons theologically:
To own a car we must purchase a car. To use a car, we must drive it, fuel it, maintain and control it. Cars, however morally neutral they may be in themselves as inanimate manufactured vehicles, have associated with them conditions that effect us morally. Do we spend tens of thousands of dollars on one vehicle in order to boost our social standing and define ourselves as superior to others financially, when we could just as easily purchase an inexpensive practical sedan for under ten thousand dollars, or a used one for thousands less? The latter decision would have not only been a humbler choice, having achieved no social promotion or encouraged envy within a circle of friends, clients or family--it would also have freed up tens of thousands of dollars for serving others' needs and preventing debilitating indebtedness.

Do we purchase large vehicles with larger engines that will necessarily demand greater quantities of gasoline and take up more space on the road, or do we purchase smaller, fuel efficienct vehicles? This becomes a moral issue on numerous levels: Greater gas consumption (according to the economic laws of supply and demand) increases the demand thereby driving up prices for everyone. If my Hummer or SUV consumes more I end up forcing others to pay more because I have reduced the common supply of gasoline disproportionally more than my neighbor who drives a small, 4-cylinder, fuel efficient Toyota or Honda sedan. Additionally my larger vehicle pollutes to a greater extent, harming the environment. My large vehicle is also more difficult to park fairly in a common parking lot~~at times intruding on another parking space that forces another driver to find another space further away since they can't squeeze into the space I have left over. Larger vehicles are more difficult to slow down quickly (due to the laws of inertia that Newton explained cogently centuries ago) thereby making large vehicles less safe of other on or near the road (particularily bicyclists). In essence,then, larger vehicles so coveted by the American public are a selfish choice~~their purchase and use, consequently, involve moral values.

Dropouts

I saw another headline lamenting the high school dropout rate. As a teacher I'm usually quite sympathetic to the concern we, as a society, have for keeping students in school and all that implies. Generally, as a society, we are supposed to be concerned with youth completing a high school education so that they can become productive, informed, responsible members of society, and that consequently they may get jobs, pay taxes, and perform essential services for the rest of society. Somehow, keeping every high school kid in school through graduation is supposed to assure this. Or at least encourage it. The problem is this: the deeper problem is much bigger than this, far more systemic, and fundamentally beyond the scope or capabilities of public (or private) educators.

First of all must be challenged the assumption that all high school students should graduate. Along with that is the corollary that after graduation, graduates should go on to attend college. There is also the assumption that the root of the problem lies within public education system, or is a defect within the power of teachers to rectify. Consequently since the problem has not been rectified teachers are blamed. But one assumption at a time.

First of all, we should not assume all students should graduate. Many, if not most, student should be encouraged to graduate because it suits them. It suits them. They are inherently oriented towards academic pursuits, they can benefit from those pursuits, and gain skills and knowledge that can be put to good use for the benefit of society. In other words, society and individuals mutually benefit, prosper and mature together. An example is a science oriented student (gifted in scientific intelligences) that learns biology, disciplines his mind and energies to go on to medical school, and subsequently becomes a doctor who serves a given community healing diseases, setting broken bones, and the like. A high school education was an integral part of that process of becoming educated.

However, what if a given student is not benefited by a high school diploma, or can pursue his own education without the need to jump through hoops? What if a student is too oppressed by the atmosphere, feels too belittled by fellow students or perhaps a staff member? What if, in some way, the high school scene does not suit him, and is detrimental to his hope, his abilities, his aspirations? Other students with limited mental abilities may have enough education for the job that they wish to have at the tenth grade level, and would like to move on, work for a relative, settle down into some sort of job and establish them selves in an occupation that does not require a high school diploma. We must not assume that one shoe size fits all, or that some people will do quite fine going barefoot.

YAHOO Mexico Mission Trip 2005

Eleven people from McMinnville Covenant, joined by sixty other Christians from various churches, gathered at the First Presbyterian Church, McMinnville, Friday morning, March 18th. Bob DeMaster (our resident doctor), Chuck McAllister, Bob Carter, Dick Moore (supervisor and chief boss), Doug and Sam Burch, Lauren Pruett, Molly McFadden, Melaine Janssen, and Pete and Brent Strobel represented our church. At 7:00 a.m. six white vans awaited our boarding. Two white trucks crammed with sleeping bags, duffle bags, boxes of shovels, saws and other tools had already gone on ahead of us (driven by four Covenanters). A cheering squad of parents and parishioners gave us their blessing as we departed. A thousand mile trip lay before us. Many of us had never gone before, and all we had to bolster our courage and resolve were stories of past years. Stories of hard work, but meaningful work. Stories of dire poverty, but loving hearts. Stories of another culture and language, but one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. (Ephesians 4:5) That’s only a little bit of what the Yamhill Alliance Helping Others Out is all about.

We were over 70 youth and adults from seven congregations. We didn’t know everyone. But the leadership carefully devised a traveling carpool schedule that helped us to get to know one another. At rest stops someone might even climb trees, but usually not. In the evenings we’d gather for worship, singing, prayer and a chance to reflect on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Scripture under girded our purpose and ministry.

By the first evening we had arrived in Carmichael, CA, a suburb of Sacramento. By the second night we reached Laguna Niguel, just south of Los Angeles. By Sunday afternoon we were setting up camp in Tecate after picking up AMOR Ministries’ staff members in San Diego, traveling across the border at Tijuana, and driving past dilapidated houses that gave witness to a socio-economic status not our own. A few of us former scouts remarked that the camp wasn’t crude by Boy Scout standards, but perhaps the gorgeous trees and striking hillsides punctuated with weathered rock outcroppings had something to do with it. The center of our camp was the kitchen tent.

Monday was our first day of work. The muscles and sweat of 70 plus Christian men and women, young and old, replaced a cement truck, power tools, and paid contract workers. Pickaxes broke the soil in three different locations, 2 x 4 wooden frames painstakingly accurate, defined the borders of the concrete slabs poured by the hands that had mixed cement, sand, rock, fiber and water, with only the help of shovels, hoes, buckets and wheelbarrows. A broken rusty water truck stood near one construction site, a mute testimony to a community that doesn’t enjoy piped-in running water or even a sewer system. We smoothed the wet concrete, chased off a wayward rooster that left tracks in the slab, and re-smoothed the future floor again. Each night we returned to our campsite where our tents were huddled to enjoy a meal together before we retired to our sleeping bags: warm, dry places to lay our aching muscles and weary limbs at night.

After applying sunscreen in the morning, we headed to the construction sites, rotating our work crews so that each family group would have a chance to work on each house. Tuesday was framing day. AMOR Ministries provides the blueprints for each of the 11 foot by 22 foot houses. The missioners young and old pay for the supplies. Fortunately enough of the YAHOO missioners had had experience. For some unexplainable, divine reason, people keep returning year after year to endure the hardships in order to reap the rewards of service. With hammers, saws, levels, lots of nails, wooden boards and plywood, dreams are erected, and hope is kindled. Families receive houses, and a bunch of kids and adults from McMinnville receive immeasurable blessings. Each noon we stopped for lunch and devotions. One day a group of us even had the opportunity to lay our hands in prayer and supplication for our new friend, Juan, whose simple 484 square foot house was built before his eyes and with his help in only three and a half days.

Tuesday night the sky clouded over, the temperature dropped to the thirties, and the skies poured rain on our heads and soaked a few sleeping bags. Wednesday we drove to our sites on the unpaved roads through a slurry of mud and puddles. For the next two days we experienced typical Oregon weather, a thousand mile south of home. Bundled up in rain jackets we wrapped each house in tar paper and strung chicken wire, tightening it like a snare drum skin so that it could hold the stucco in place. Somehow we got ahead of schedule and began mixing the sand and cement for the stucco by Wednesday. Before we left that late afternoon, we’d applied some of the first coat and installed the windows. That night it rained again.

Thursday we finished the house with a second complete coat of stucco, and installed the doors. Swept clean, our tools packed up, we visited each house and left each family with a candle reminding them of Christ’s light, a blessing from our hearts, a hospitality box filled with blankets, quilts, pots and pans and other supplies. Lastly, but symbolically powerful, we gave them their keys. There were few dry eyes, and I believe we will all remember the hug that Juan gave us forever. Such gratitude is rarely seen or received in our too often cynical and materialistic society.

So why did we go? Last week during worship we sang: “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” And so the Lord answers that cry through us, His body currently incarnate. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: “Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of our faces.” Are we not the ears of Jesus hearing this cry of the poor? Are we not His feet to hurry to service, His hands eager to lift walls and slide roofs into place? It is not we who do these things, but Christ within us. We are His Arms of Love. To this we are called. Amen.

Music: Personally Listening

Music is such a personal thing. I think sometimes when we listen we make judgments about ourselves and other who like or dislike the songs and singers we like or dislike. I have a friend who really likes Tupac (now deceased) the rapper. I mentally vomit at the crass called rap, but to others they hear rhyme and rhythm, righteous indignation and social commentary. The crass language and crashing beat of rap moves them, like it does my friend. I keep him as my friend because our friendship is rich and supportive, stimulating and compassionate. We just don’t listen to his Tupac together. I'm not sure if he'd enjoy Cat Stevens as much as I do, or whether he'd just fall asleep.

Sometimes we should listen to each other’s music and listen beyond or behind the beat that jars our senses, or the words either too bitterly profane or too saccharine sweet for our tastes.

For a number of years (before my son turned 18 and could no longer pursue the Eagle rank) I was involved with the Boy Scouts. My son was a Life Scout, and I was an Assistant Scoutmaster. There was this one boy, Evan, who would always seek me out just to talk—any campout or troop meeting—and eventually he’d always mention the music he loved, or a song he’d just memorized. And he’d sing me snatches of lyrics that sometimes I’d raise my eyebrows at. But I think he really knew how much I liked him anyway. We’d laugh, joke around and I would be tolerant of hearing about music I’d never want to hear by myself. He even burned me a Blink 182 CD because he cared so much.

I could never quite understand his persistence to persuade me into liking his style of music, but I think he thought if I learned to like it I’d like him even more. Such is the power of music to sway us.

A Y.A.H.O.O. reflection: on the way to Mexico.

As we drove down to Tecate, Mexico to build three simple houses through Amor Ministries, I wrote these thoughts:

“I’m seriously wondering how wet it will be down there in Mexico. All through California it’s been raining. I brought a rain poncho, a jacket and hat, but this will be serious. Mud-caked shoes, soaked jeans, chilled fingers. But think ~ the people who we are going to help are living in cardboard shacks—makeshift huts with mud flooring. They are shivering even as I travel south—warm and comfortable as soft music lulls me in-and-out of sleep and reflective moments.

For four days I’ll shiver and stink, gripe of the mud and hammer nails into swollen wooden planks, but maybe I’ll get to leave behind a roof that won’t leak, a floor that won’t squish underfoot, and windows that will leave the weather outside for a happy family. ~ At the next rainstorm brown eyes beneath a mop of black hair will peer outside and those eyes will twinkle.

Some of the saints of old probably would have entered into this whole experience with relish and sublime delight all the while mud would run in rivulets down their forearms and drip off their elbows. With sandals sunk deep into the muck around them they’d hoist the boards onto their shoulders like the beams of puny crosses and embrace the feel of the wood as a sweet imitation and participation in the crucifixion of their Lord and Savior. For to these saints Jesus is truly Lord and Savior, not one without the other. With every nail they’d hammer they’d hear the nails that pierced their Lord’s wrists and the sound of the metal on metal would be the very utterance of Love Divine.
That’s how the saints would receive this commission: with arms of Love. How will I enter into this mission? If mud be dried to dust, or dust be soaked to mud, will either matter? If my fingers be slit by slivers or the rain makes me shiver will it matter? Will I be able to encourage the teen that saws next to me, and laugh with the grown-up across from me? Or will my thoughts be wrapped up about me, my comfort, my pleasure and my needs?
Oh, Lord, help me to remember the saints of old, and welcome this time as they would."

Standing Under When Understanding Fails

Understanding at last fades away into the unknown, the mysterious and wonderful. What remains, what reveals itself—even as it conceals itself—as more important than understanding is the act and passion of standing under. I look skyward and take in the vastness of blue riddled with tufts and clumps of clouds, bare tree branches starkly silhouetted against this canvas, and I understand truly so little. So I stand under instead. And it is enough: to take your stand under the heavens above, grasping only the rudiments of the physics involved, but reveling in the aesthetics beyond it. This is enough: it is the right response—not to turn away into my four-walls-and-a-roof in order to escape my non-understanding, my ignorance and feeble facts. To stand under the sky and to stand under the branches of the forest, to stand under the mountain’s shadow and the weaving ribbon of geese in flight: Now this is life and health, hope and wonder. In this my mind rests and finds peace.