Decreasing

"What are you giving up for Lent this year?"
Facebook, Coffee, Beer, TV, Sugar, Chocolate

And that list is just the beginning of things people give up for lent. Lent is to be a time of fasting, repentance, and preparation not a way to jump start your diet or revive the New Year's resolution you haven't followed through on. So when I have friends say they are giving up Facebook or Slurpees for 40 days I'm not all that impressed because they are giving that thing up for the wrong reason(s). I think this is why every year I consider observing Lent and every year, without fail thus far, on Ash Wednesday I change my mind and don't do it. Oh sure I could pick something to not do or eat for 40 days but I know, deep down, it's not going to change my relationship with God one bit. All it will do is create a hunger in me so by the time I hit day 40 I'm so jumpy from withdrawals that on day 41 I binge out on the thing I had just given up for 40 days. Or I find a replacement for the thing I gave up and it becomes just as much of an addiction as the thing I could finally shake loose from.

I grew up Baptist and Lent wasn't observed or actually even mentioned. I had no idea what it was until some point in my adult life when all the puzzle pieces came together and I finally figured out why the fish sandwich at McDonald's was so popular with Catholics on Fridays. It all seem shrouded in mystery or perhaps mysticism especially since it directly followed Mardi Gras each year. And everyone knows what kind of spirits hang out in New Orleans and the Mardi Gras parties. *wink* Ash Wednesday follows Fat Tuesday and I always thought that was very clever of the Church. Make a day of repentance following a day of excess and hedonism and then attempt to spend the next 39 days atoning for and/or recovering from that "one night" of excess.

But in my mid-30's I started getting really interested in the actual purpose of Lent. Not the Lent that so many I know practice to shake the monkey off their back, not the Lent that so many I know use to beat themselves into some sort of weird submission to some guilt induced behavior, not the Lent I know that means nothing except fish on Fridays and Mass on Sundays. No, I started getting interested in Lent - the Lent that is a true preparation of spirit, the Lent that spends time examining the heart, the Lent that has its focus on Christ and not on self, the Lent that leads to a simultaneous decrease and increase.

The history of Lent itself is not something I am interested in getting into here but suffice it to say it has a long history. In fact, the book 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole gives a brief history of Lent for each of the 40 days along with the rest of the focus for that day. It's an in-depth history of the practice of Lent but in bite-sized pieces so you don't get too full too fast.

The practice of Lent is the thing I am the most interested in getting into. If it was just jump starting a diet or shaking some monkey off my back I would have attempted it long ago. But since it isn't, since I believe it is to be taken more seriously than that, I have abstained until this year. And I wouldn't necessarily say I practiced it this year, I would say I am warming up to the practice of it.

When I think of decrease I think of John 3:30. Of course I do.
"He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less."
But just because it's kind of an obvious scripture to think of doesn't make it less important or invalidate it. It is, in my opinion, one the the most important and hardest scriptures to live out and become. Us humans don't like to decrease, it stings our flesh and the desires of our flesh. We like being number one - self important and entitled. We are addicted to the illusion of control we have over our lives. Decreasing means we have to give up that illusion.

Decreasing means reduction. Becoming progressively less. Lent is a time to pinpoint those areas in which I need to become progressively less invested because it affects my health. And I'm not talking about physical health, although that is certainly a side effect. Decreasing is an inside out process. It must start from within, eventually it is seen externally. This past Lent season I used a guide for my warm-up to the practice of Lent. The guide helped me to pinpoint the things in my life, and heart, that are the obstacles to complete health. Things like: using something like Lent as a project for jump starting a lifestyle change (that's day 1), ignoring or rushing through things that cause sorrow and grief, isolating self, being a spectator when God has asked us to be a participant, profiling people, treating God like he is a job and not a relationship, the comparison trap, self-protection, rationalizing, revising for comfort, needing praise from others and seeking it out. And the list went on. I don't know about you but some of those made me go, "Ouch." And if I'm honest with myself, if I practice the self-awareness I tell other people it is necessary to have, then I have to confront those ugly things about myself and reduce their influence in my heart and mind and therefore life. Do I profile people? Yes. I try so very hard not to but I do. Have I treated God like he's another thing to mark off my to-do list for the day? I have. I have tried not to but I'm guilty of treating him like a task and not like the Creator of my life. I've sat on the sidelines and watched life pass me by instead of joining in life. I allow so many things and reasons to keep me "sidelined." There's some scriptures that make me wince internally and I have tried to revise them so that I'm not stung with conviction each time they appear in my life. The fact is I need the sting of the truth to encourage the necessary decrease.

For the past three, maybe four, years I have been observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You can read my past posts about it here and here. Observing this feast is similar to Lent. It's purpose is to highlight the things in my life that need to reduce. The fact is, this process of decreasing is ongoing. I will never "arrive" at a place or time in which I don't need a reduction of some sort in my life. Philippians 1:6 supports this truth. As long as I have breath I am in continuing education about myself which includes decreasing in the things that make me unhealthy.

What does it mean to decrease? It means to become less and less and allow him, the Creator of your life, to become more and more.


Supplemental Thoughts on Ways to Observe Lent:
Eugene Cho 
Pope Francis
Anna Whittaker
The Art of Simple

Here's a visual of a decrease idea, as your stuff decreases allow God to have an increase.

The Natives

"In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue..." This catchy little saying is one most of us are familiar with and until a few years ago I didn't think much of it. It just helped me remember when Columbus had landed on the shores of what is now the United States of America. Now, in my adult years, the little saying is weighted with error, greed, racism, genocide, and an arrogant, imperialist caucasian people.

Much like the immigrants the Native Americans are another part of the American population that have been mistreated. But unlike the immigrants, the Native Americans were inhabiting this land long before any other culture set foot on it.

Let's cover the basic facts first. Columbus did not land on our shores, he landed on the shores of San Salvador. So the basic facts are this: Columbus did not discover America, in fact he didn't discover any new place.  Wherever he landed was already occupied by an indigenous people. He discovered nothing but he introduced something. Columbus introduced many methods of genocide, including but not limited to: mass extermination, exposure to deadly disease, and slavery. Not only did he introduce a physical genocide of the indigenous people on islands as well as the Native American, he also led the way for a cultural genocide which has contributed to the physical as well.

A few years ago a news article caught my eye. The headline reported an Indian reservation that had a higher crime rate than that of the entire United States. Say what?! So I read the article and felt my heart sink. The pictures of various homes and the reservation made me sick with anger. I mean really. What the hell? How is it possible that we have allowed our indigenous people to live like third world citizens in this country that their ancestors occupied long before we ever did? How is this possible?

In short, it is possible because the white man sucks. If the shoe fits then sometimes we have to wear it and in this case we've got to wear it. But I think it's way past time we took it off.  I have a friend who posted just this past columbus day "holiday" about the historical context of the actions of Columbus - citing also Pisarro, Cortez, Torquemada as participating in the same actions/behaviors. Does this mean it is right? So four or more people makes it an okay thing?  He was challenged.

For too long we have allowed ourselves to label something as "good", "right", or "okay" just because it was a common practice or it was the unwritten way things were to be done. Just because something is practiced as acceptable doesn't mean that it actually is. And in the case of our Natives, what many pass off as acceptable or "that's just the way it is" is in reality something we should not accept. We have forgotten to step into the shoes of another for perspective. As a white people, we would not allow the kind of treatment the Natives have received and are receiving to be acceptable. In Philippians 2 treatment of others is addressed and we have fallen short my white friends. Way short. We have behaved out of self-interest, ignorance, pride, superiority, and disdain.

Despite the lovely meal the Natives and the Puritans shared that we now partially base our American Thanksgiving on, within one year of that meal and that time of the Natives educating the Puritans about the land and how to live with it, the head of the Chief's son was sitting atop a wooden spike in the middle of the village square. The early Puritans had defined Native Americans as savages, somehow inhuman and undeserving of the rights accorded white men. Yes, the Natives who showed them how to farm the land, fish, hunt for food, build shelter - such savages. What was their crime? They wouldn't give the white man all the land they were greedy for and demanding. So the white man went in and took it.

Between 1887 and 1933 the white man decided the Natives needed to become civilized. Of course the definition of civilization was the white man's definition and so the white people began to forcibly and systematically tear down the Native American culture - the way of life, making a living, the family structure, and their worldview. I can only surmise that at the root of the white man's dismantling of the Natives was fear. Fearful of someone and something different.  White people don't seem to handle different cultures and ethnic groups very well, we always try to turn them into clones of ourselves.

We asserted our white man authority and required the Natives to learn English, dress as the white man and woman, and convert to Christianity. We cut out of their lives everything about them that made them valuable and contributing. We introduced foods to them that have wreaked havoc with their health through the generations, we introduced them to copious amounts of spirits (ahem, alcohol) that they discovered helped numb their depression over being separated from their very self. We introduced to them methods of warfare and fighting that earned them the nickname "savage" but since we introduced them to those methods then who is really the savage? We removed their children from them as young as three years old and raised them to be "white." By the time they returned to their families the fracture was irreparable. The principal of the best-known school for Indian children at Carlisle in Pennsylvania boasted that his aim for each child was to ‘kill the Indian in him and save the man'. Well, if that was the goal the white man has succeeded. The white man had this false idea that the Native Americans needed to be tamed and taught how to be self-sufficient. But weren't they living on the land and with the land for years before a white person stepped upon it?  Hmmm. That sounds pretty self-sufficient to me. And weren't the Natives the ones to educate the first white people on the land how to be self-sufficient?  Huh.

Assimilation wasn't going as planned (gee, what a shock) and in 1928 a report came out that showed the Natives were living in extreme poverty, suffering from a poor diet, inadequate housing and limited health care. Schools were overcrowded and badly resourced. The report rejected ‘the disastrous attempt to force individual Indians or groups of Indians to be what they do not want to be, to break their pride in themselves and their Indian race, or to deprive them of their Indian culture’ while accepting the government policy to assimilate the Native into the white man's world. In short, the report proved that attempts to turn the Native into the white man were failing miserably.

In 1933 John Collier, a white American, became the Commissioner for Indian Affairs. He had read the report of failure from a few years earlier and wholeheartedly believed that the 'Native American community life and respect for the environment had much to teach American materialism, and he was passionately determined to preserve as much of the traditional Indian way of life as possible. In particular, he wanted Native American reservations to be permanent, sovereign homelands.' But his enthusiasm didn't get him very far. Collier was well-intentioned but as usually happens, what is devised in theory rarely is executed well in reality. Most of his policies failed. Proof of that still lives today as the state of reservations are equal to and in some cases worse than third world nations.

We "relocated" (I believe that's the PC word for forced/threatened) them to land called reservations, oh so proud of ourselves for giving them what was already theirs.  Except the reservations are the leftovers of the land, they hold the least amount of resources and if any are found the white man comes in and takes it away. Drive a reservation and you will forget you are in America, a developed nation. Instead you will feel like you are driving through a slum in a third world country. (May 5 2004, Gallup Independent)

Our Natives are in crisis.

Today our Natives are plagued by addiction, Type 2 Diabetes, depression, and even PTSD. Poverty is the way of life, hopelessness taints every interaction, The lifestyle of the modern Native American reflects the racist and elitist attitudes of the white man. Intergenerational trauma has been woven into the fabric of the Native American culture and people.  Instead of passing down through the generations cultural pride, traditions that enrich and contribute to society, and sense of self what has been passed down instead is shame that the Native isn't the white man, apology for the culture of the Native, and no sense of who or what the Native American actually is. A whole entire people group has been whipped into white man submission.

How disgusting. How arrogant. How blatantly imperialist. Charles Abourezk, Supreme Court Justice for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, makes a very accurate observation about America's unwillingness to own up to their real history. He observes that we [Americans] want to believe we are the good people, that we do good, and have good intentions but the reality is we are not. We are guilty of some of the most heinous acts globally and our superiority complex has led to a severe lack of self-awareness. No wonder we struggle as individuals to be self-aware, we live in a nation that is completely blinded to its true self.

White people have managed to twist history to make the Native feel responsible for their plight. What people group would not rise up to defend themselves in the midst of systematic removal of every part of what makes them a unique and valuable people group? White people have certainly defended their ways, did we expect others would just lie down and let us trample them? Of course the Native Americans fought back, of course they did. You would as well in the same situation and under the same kind of conditions.  You would. 

What does God have to do with any of this? Well, quite a bit actually. After all, the Native American is created by him same as any other people group. He created them to add value and worth to this world we all inhabit. He gave the Natives a unique skill set to compliment others. He allowed them a rich culture filled with stewardship of the Earth, acknowledgment of a power that supersedes humans, and an ability to keep our stories alive through narrative and word picture. God looks on this people group with fierce love, pride, and hope for what they can contribute to this world. How he looks at them is how he tells us to look on them as well.

So what kind of response is necessary in light of historical truth? We can't, as individuals, do much to move the Government to make restitution. But as individuals we can begin to reach out and extend help to this people group that, despite the abuse they have endured, has faithfully and sacrificially served this nation in wars and protecting its resources. We can step outside of our white bubbles and take a genuine interest in a culture that respects the things we don't. We can give them their land back and clean up the land we dumped them on. We can enter into their plight with them and help lift them up out of it. Let us help our Natives to be the like the phoenix rising from the ashes of injustice, cultural shame, ethnic dilution, and depression.


A starter list of ways to reach out and help:
Key Organizations Helping the Native American Communities
Native American Heritage Association
Rotten American Indian Charities - you need to know who to not associate with as well as who to align with

Resources that contributed to my written post:
Native Americans and the Federal Government
The Effect of the Homestead Act on Native Americans
Top 10 Historic Indian Battles
Indian-Killer Andrew Jackson Deserves Top Spot on List of Worst U.S. Presidents
Native American History
Native American Genocide Still Haunts United States
Historical Myth; Columbus Did Not 'Discover' America, He Made Slaves Of Native Population, Killed Most Of The Indian Inhabitants
Nice Day for a Genocide: Shocking Quotes on Indians By U.S. Leaders
Native American History
Trail of Tears: The Native American "Problem" in the New World
Native American Living Conditions
Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide? - While some interesting points are made I disagree with the overall conclusion.  
Current Problems for American Indians Today
What Do We Owe the Indians?
Why Are Indian Reservations So Poor? A Look At The Bottom 1%
An Introduction to Indian Nations in the United States
13th Annual State Of Indian Nations 
Anton Treuer's 'Atlas of Indian Nations' covers the past and present of 560 diverse tribes
Indian Child Welfare Act
Stealing Children: A Look at Indigenous Child Removal Policies
Indian Removal 
Trauma May Be Woven Into DNA of Native Americans
**The Canary Effect - I highly recommend this short documentary
Native reserve system is Canada's disgrace 
Native American Indians
New Discovery Confirms Native American Views on Their Ancestry
Maybe every time Columbus Day comes around, we should rethink who the real heroes are
Who Scalped Whom? Historians Suggest Indians Were As Much Victims As Perpetrators
Thanksgiving: What Our History Teacher Didn't Tell Us
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The Washington Redskins

The Immigrants

99% of American citizens are immigrants or descendants of immigrants

It's a complex issue, a hot button topic, and there is no black and white answer. I can't speak very well into the complexities of immigration and my husband and I can't even have a conversation about it without getting a bit heated with one another. It's an issue that people think you can stand firmly one side or the other, ignoring the middle. You can't because there is a middle. I think it might be the people who brave the middle that will be the ones to bring reform, if it can happen. 

In 1886 France gifted America with Lady Liberty. Officially her name is "The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" and she is a symbol of freedom and democracy. France was recognizing the hospitality and friendship of the United States toward the rest of the world. In 1903 Emma Lazarus wrote what are now the words that we imagine Lady Liberty is saying, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And the world took America at its word. Risking all, they crossed lands and seas to enter the land of the free and the home of the brave. They were the brave. Those that entered the land of freedom didn't get a free handout or any kind of special assistance. They worked for a new life, they worked to show how grateful they were for freedom. They built lives and businesses and became part of the melting pot history of the United States. Their children received education and chances they never may have received in their home countries. They were the brave and now they were also the free. 

Throughout the years since America opened its proverbial arms to those from other lands there has been an ebb and flow of debate, decisions, closed borders, wide open borders, entitlement, unity, and division. Our nation has made some significant mistakes regarding immigration in our history. Some of those mistakes were due to world events that forced people to flee from their native countries, some of those mistakes were due to lack of policy, some have been due to our political parties and their inability to get along for the greater good of the people.  So whatever the reasons, we are at a point today where immigration causes deep anger and hurt on both sides of the issue.  But there is a middle.  There is, on most issues, almost always a middle.  

Last November President Obama simultaneously ticked off and delighted the residents, legal and nonlegal, of this nation with his address about immigration reform and his plans. I listened to it and sat for a minute and then listened to it again, noticing that I was nodding along. There's this idea that if *you* disagree with one policy of an elected official then you disagree with every policy, even healthy eating I guess.* That's preposterous right? Well sure, when it is pointed out to *you* that way!  But too often we surround ourselves with enough like-minded people that it never gets pointed out to us in that way.  So I started thinking about immigration and the issues that it has brought up. And more importantly I started praying about it and asking God to challenge me in the opinions I may be holding that didn't line up with his word about immigrants. I found out that perhaps God agrees with it as well. GASP. Yes, God. Now I'm just crazy talkin'...or am I?

I'm not crazy talking to consider God in all of this but I find that many American believers think it is crazy to consider God. Yep, let me say that again. Many American Christians think it is crazy to consider God in this issue. I've noticed something about the Church in America today (yes it's a generalization, I do know there are exceptions) and what I have noticed is the lack of compassion for others, the quick condemnation and judgment that is passed, the false idea that Jesus is a white republican gun-toting homophobic dude. I'm disturbed by these behaviors and I want to distance myself as far as possible from them. They don't represent the God I have studied and gotten to know in scripture and in personal relationship with him. 

It looks like we have forgotten God and his perspective in light of our favorite candidate and their platform that we think looks enough like things God talks about in the Bible.  And that leads us to an "absence of serious, theologically-probing, mutually-respectful conversation about immigration and illegal immigration in the Christian community....Conversation about immigration among Christians has mostly resembled what we see in the secular arena, with people talking mainly to those with whom they agree and blasting away at those with whom they disagree." (Mark D Roberts)**

But more and more disciples of Christ are realizing that perhaps God should be consulted. A pastor in the Pacific Northwest said this in his most recent publication, "....consider the issue of immigration and immigration reform.  In the United States, and even in the church in America, there has been persistent opposition to any legal reforms that would facilitate the process by which currently undocumented immigrants could attain citizenship or legal status.  This is despite the fact that nearly all of us are descendants of immigrants and that throughout Scripture God explicitly demonstrates that immigrants have a special place in His heart and economy.***  The arguments generally given against such reforms all revolve around the question, 'How will this affect me or my bottom line?' and the conclusion that they (immigrants) will somehow inconvenience me." (The Grand Paradox, Wytsma, pages 51-52) 

It's a complex issue that does have a middle. The middle is where God is waiting for us to get to. I grew up being taught that God doesn't live in the middle, he's very clearly on the right or he very clearly takes the narrow way.  The older I get and the more I live with God and study him the more I think that perhaps we look at life and its issues in the wrong ways. What if what we considered the broad path is not? What if it's actually the narrow path God has pointed to? What if? I'm not saying it is but I am saying we can't dismiss it as a possibility. And what that really means is we can't dismiss the possibility that we have been wrong in how we approach issues of concern in our world today, especially if we say we are disciples of Christ. We must consider his instructions and methods regardless of the politics and their pull.

How does God see the immigrant? The same way he sees you and me. Have we forgotten that all are made in the image of Christ?  All. How does God treat the immigrant? The same way he treats you and I. Have we forgotten that all are under his care and protection? All.

The immigration issue in America is not without its obvious, and not so obvious, problems. I'm not suggesting we fling our borders wide open and just let masses come in. I am suggesting that we ask God for his ideas and we meet with him in the middle. Some mistakes that have been made need to be corrected. Some extremes that have been adopted need to be scaled down and a return to a more reasonable policy needs to happen. We have residents of this country who did it the way people did who entered through Ellis Island and are offended that some might seem to be getting a free ride from our government. We also have residents in this country who are moral, hard working, and contributors to this nation but are doing so without legal papers because the red tape and paperwork is so daunting and expensive. And of course we have those who aren't moral or hard working, who have come in with their drugs and their guns and motives to harm. The immigration system is broken. It's dilapidated and weak, it is a money making scheme for already wealthy people, it has led to cracks and holes wide enough for human trafficking to sneak through. The problems are complex, the damage significant. It will take hard work, hard decisions, choosing to understand the complexities, and some compromise to fix what is so broken. The answer is not to just deport them all and wipe our hands of it. These are people with children, and in some cases grandchildren, who have built a life here in America, who were so desperate for a chance at freedom that they had to make a choice to disregard and break laws in order to stay.  These are people who get America and its value more than Americans do. Some of these people have nobody in their home country, they know virtually nothing about their home country, and some don't even know the language spoken in their home country. To deport them would be equal to sending them on a rocket ship to the moon and dropping them off.

Don't think that I haven't forgotten the most used plea for understanding. Put yourself in the shoes of an immigrant. Walk in their footsteps for a day or two and you'll quickly understand why it's so hard to become a citizen, get a green card, keep a work visa, and live undocumented. You will understand how much money it takes and the sacrifices you would be willing to make in order to see it happen. You will get a feeling for the need to stay and work towards being free rather than return to a regime or a government system that oppresses its people. You will then understand the desperation that leads to taking the risk to remain undocumented in hopes that someday you can make it right.  You might gain understanding of a university educated person having to clean toilets here in America because they have been told their education doesn't count here. They are willing to clean the toilets and go to school and get their education all over again just to stay. That's how much staying in America means to them.

What does God think, what does he say about immigration? First and foremost he says to take care of them. To clothe them and feed them as we are commanded to do with the widow and the orphan. He then goes on to tell us to make a way for them, remembering that we too have been immigrants - strangers in strange lands. God is a God of order and he can bring order to the chaos that is called immigration in America.





*The short story is that a few years ago my hub and I were watching a show in which Michelle Obama was advocating for kids getting healthier by eating healthier. My hub was rather dismissive of her desires and initiatives. Why? Simply because the name and administration Obama was associated. Um. 
** Illegal Immigration: Seeking a Christian Perspective  This post by Mark Roberts is lengthy but worth every word.  I found it to be an excellent resource. 
***Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:17-19

Resources I checked out, perhaps you will too:
Biblical References To Immigrants And Refugees
The United Church of Christ: Faith And Immigration
Immigration Concerns: The System is Broken
The Facts on Immigration Today
5 Facts About Illegal Immigration in the U.S.
A detailed look at immigration in the U.S. from the colonial period to the present
Top Ten U.S. Immigration Facts
Immigration Myths and Facts
All you wanted to know, and more, about immigration in the U.S. 
Why do people cross the border illegally? It's not what you think
Like the Emancipation Proclamation, Obama's order forces democracy
Why Don't They Just Get in Line? 
What Would It Cost to Deport 11.3 Million Unauthorized Immigrants?

Answering Unnamed Burdens

My hub and I are not yardwork kind of people.  In fact, we despise yardwork. So a few years ago when we would look out into our backyard, er I mean weed jungle, all we would feel is despair. It was time consuming, exhausting, and hot work to try and remove the jungle and then keep it from returning.  At one point we finally just had to put on our big people undies, pull the weeds, lay down some material, and then we hauled rock and laid it all down. The areas we didn't rock the hub mows down every summer.  Our backyard looks like a minefield but at least it is a mowed one. :)  The point is, I get being overwhelmed by something and on top of being overwhelmed it is something you hate to spend time doing.

Mary has a rather large backyard and when you stand on her deck and look out at it, all you see is what seems like miles of waist high weeds along the side and entire back of the yard. Every time Mary looked out all she felt was despair.  It was an unnamed burden in her heart. She never talked about it much and so much more of life always seemed to take over as priority. Mary is a single mom with three teenagers, ain't nobody got time for weeds when there are bills to pay and teenagers to raise.

Mary talks a lot with God, she names the burdens in her life to him and trusts that he will hear her and respond in a way that assures her she and the kids are being taken care of.  But she never whispered to God the burden of the backyard, it just seemed so unimportant in light of other things. But God created Mary so each time she glanced out the back and the burden of what she saw settled a little more deeply in her heart God heard it, felt it, and saw it.  And God answered it. He answered Mary's question even though she never voiced it. God responded to Mary's burden through a friend who was listening to the radio and heard about an organization that helps single moms. The friend nominated Mary for assistance and that's where I enter in.

I work for the radio station that was taking nominations for the organization's help.  Every June the Colorado stations partner with the organization and invite listeners to be hands and feet to single parents in their local community. We call it Live (Service) Out and it happens in every community where a WAY-FM is found throughout the United States. The service projects done throughout WAY-FM communities varies from building homes with Habitat for Humanity to landscaping/yardwork for people or ministry organizations to serving meals in a local shelter to collecting diapers for the local pregnancy center. Not only is WAY-FM interested in inviting their local listeners to get involved in their communities, they are also interested in their employees being involved.  So, as we like to say, we are "voluntold"* to participate each June in our own local activities. :)

Remember what I said earlier?  I despise yardwork. SIGH.

I was presented with two choices.
Haul rock in the front yard or pull weeds in the backyard.
My back made the choice for me so I pulled on some work gloves, fixed my face to poker setting, and headed to the backyard. Mary's backyard to be specific. The backyard that was an unnamed burden in her life and when I entered it I felt a little burdened myself. WOW. That is a lot of weeds, it kind of looked like a smaller sized ocean of weeds.  My co-workers and I started in. We've been getting a lot of rain in our city lately, this worked to our benefit for sure.  Seven of us started tackling certain priority areas and in no time at all we had cleared a large section. But then the real work started. We hit patches of weeds that networked with others below the surface and weren't so willing to be pulled loose.  I waded, literally, into the waist high weeds and started pulling. Looking up and around it felt like we were getting nowhere even though we had already filled several bags and there were piles waiting to go in bags.  Oh and did I mention that it was a bright, sunny day?  Not a cloud in the sky.  I had sweat trickling down my arms, down my back, beading on my face. If you know me you know what this means.  I was in a mood. I forgot to mention earlier that I hate sweating and being hot, even overly warm, makes me grumpy with a capital G.

A couple of hours in and a few more people had joined us in the backyard.  Eleven of us pulling and bagging, making that slow and steady progress that does eventually catch up all at once and boom! You're done.  It was kind of incredible really, all these hands - some very willing, some not so willing - pulling and removing Mary's unnamed burden by the minute until eventually we looked around and the burden was gone.  Mary was standing on her deck looking at her backyard without the despair she had felt previously. All of sudden it was like she could breathe again, she felt like she could manage the backyard now instead of it managing her.

God responded to Mary's unnamed burden. He didn't do it through supernaturally killing off all the weeds and making them disappear (thanks to the Garden scene in Genesis he won't do that).  He did it by employing his people to use their hands and feet. He did it through relationship, which is often how God answers the unnamed burdens of life, Mary's and our own.  And the real work of burden lifting doesn't get done without hands and feet.

Unnamed burdens that God wants to answer, along with the named ones, aren't always going to require hands and feet pulling weeds or hauling rock. Maybe the hands and feet will be rubbing lotion into dry and cracked skin or cleaning a bathroom or cooking a meal for someone.  It's what is so beautiful about being the hands and feet of Christ, there are so many different ways and opportunities to be hands and feet.

I hate yardwork, despise it actually. But I am sure glad that I showed up, albeit reluctantly, to Mary's backyard and along with others became the hands and feet that removed the unnamed burden that God knew. Every weed pulled and every sore muscle I now have was worth the look of relief on Mary's countenance at the end of the day.

God did that for Mary and he will do it for us too.

The trailer full of bags?  ALL WEEDS. There is nothing on that trailer bed but bags and bags of weeds!
I told you it was a lot.  And 'a lot' is a bit of an understatement really. 

 *More on the "voluntold" later - now isn't the time nor place, ha!

Make a Move and Do Something!

Have you ever been driving and pulled up to a stoplight and there was a person standing on the corner

holding a sign, asking for food or money or both?

I'll go first with my confession.

I've groaned when I spot them.  I feel awkward that I am sitting in a warm or cold (depends on the season) car with a full stomach and a home to sleep in that night.  I feel skeptical that the money I may hand them is used for food and not for alcohol.  And sometimes I have groaned because I am dismayed that their need makes me feel guilty for what I do have.  As if they are an inconvenience to me and my conscience.

I'm pretty sure I am not the only one who feels this way.  I've seen other people at the same stoplight, staring straight ahead trying to ignore the needy person standing there asking for help.  I know what the "stare straight ahead and don't look them in the eye" means because I have done it myself.

Can anyone out there relate to me?  It's okay if you have, you are not alone.

But I don't groan anymore.

A few years ago I went on a little trip across many oceans and land masses. I landed in East Africa and I walked through the oldest slum in that part of the continent.  I walked right by some of the homeless and poverty stricken of that city and I looked into eyes that held no hope, I saw the defined bones of those who had no food, I smelled those who had no access to facilities to clean themselves up.  I saw the attempts and the remnants of attempts to generate some sort of income for the bare basics.

Then I traveled back across those oceans and land masses and I set foot on the soil of my city. And I saw the homeless people in my city, in my nation, with different eyes and a different heart.  So the first time I pulled up to a corner where a homeless person stood after my trip to East Africa I didn't groan.  I prayed for them.  I wasn't prepared and I felt like the 2 pennies I found in the cup holder might be more of an insult than a blessing so I just prayed...that time. 

A few years ago, after I had traveled back and forth to East Africa twice, I heard this song by Royal Tailor and was floored by the lyrics.  The song so perfectly verbalized the ponderings of my heart.  Without noticing it, I do get captured by the unimportant and I forget what God considers to have value. It's too easy to be captured and to forget what my eyes have witnessed and my heart has absorbed.  It became clear to me that unless I make a move and do something to keep what God values at the forefront of my life I will forget and allow the unimportant to regain its grip on my life.  

I decided to invite others to join me in this intentional move to do things that bring actual value to the lives of others.  My first move was to make up bags for the homeless in our city.  We would make up as many as we possibly could and deliver them to our local Rescue Mission.  I sent out a call to action and our first "Make A Move" Event happened at my house in 2012. We came together - regardless of denominations, political parties, color of skin, doctrinal beliefs, and any other difference you can come up with - and assembled toiletry/necessity kits for the homeless in our town. The second time we did it we delivered bags to the Rescue Mission but challenged everyone to keep a few and hand them out as they saw those people standing on street corners.  It's one thing to make up the bags and get the warm fuzzies for doing a good deed but it takes on a whole different meaning when you are the one to hand it to someone in need and engage them in some conversation. Something happens when you look in the eyes of the person taking the bag from your hand, when you touch their arm to speak value to them, and you see that they are just like you.  

The second Saturday of every month a group of people - regardless of denominations, political parties, color of skin, doctrinal beliefs, and any other difference you can come up with - come together and prep a meal and then serve it for the residents of a Salvation Army shelter in our town.  Even the kids help serve. We don't shy away from looking them in the eye, smiling at someone who may be scowling, lending a literal hand to someone who is using a walker to get around.  We make sure we treat them just like we would people we meet in a restaurant, at the church we go to, in a store. We make sure they know we don't pity them but we have empathy for their situation.  In my experience most homeless people don't want pity, it feels degrading to them just as it does to someone who lives in a 3000 square foot home and has two full refrigerators and a freezer full as well.    

Since my first trip to East Africa in 2007 I have been alert to the needs of others.  That's what an expanded worldview will do, give you eyes to see beyond yourself.  So I'm always interested to pitch in and be literal hands and feet on behalf of Christ.  Here's the thing about being a need-meeter.  It doesn't have to be grandiose and splashy.  In fact, the more unassuming it is the better.  If all we ever witnessed were showy ways of helping others then we would never know what the small and seemingly insignificant things actually did in the hearts and lives of the recipients.  

Last week my co-workers and I participated in a nationwide event our organization hosted called Live (Service) Out.  In each city that our radio station (wayfm.com) has a listener base we invited our listeners to join us for two days of local community service. Throughout the nation we collectively built homes, fences, and other build needs. We planted flowers, pulled weeds, and landscaped. We washed cars, served food, and looked people in the eye.  In my city my co-workers and I went to a local care center/nursing facility and spent some time with the residents there. A staff member produced a tub of nail polish and home manicure items and asked if we would paint nails.  It was AWESOME! It was so much fun to pamper those women in that way and to be able to sit knee to knee with them and love on them. Some of the residents don't have any family that come visit so loneliness is a reality. We served by easing the loneliness of these precious people.  

You may think that painting nails is insignificant and accomplishes nothing but let me tell you about 2 women who would disagree with you. Kimberly just turned 60 on June 12.  She's at the care facility due to what appears to be a stroke.  A co-worker, Silvia, and I went in to her room and she was beyond excited to have her nails done. Turns out Kimberly was a beautician and, in her words, "I love polish on my nails."  Kimberly's right hand and fingers were turned inward from her injury but we figured out a way to hold her hand and fingers so we could get the polish on and let it dry.  Kimberly was so pleased. She thanked us over and over and kept exclaiming how wonderful it was to have someone do this for her. This was incredibly significant to Kimberly.  It spoke value to her, that people were willing to address obstacles she presented in order to pamper her a little bit.  The other woman is Connie.  Connie is very unhappy.  She doesn't smile, she doesn't speak to people, not even the baby we had or the therapy puppy could crack the wall Connie has built around herself. But we all continued to speak kindly to her and offer to do something with her.  She shook her head no every time.  After Kimberly's nails were dry, Silvia and I headed to a different area of the facility and Connie was walking down the hall toward us. As she shuffled toward us we said, "Hi Connie, would you like to get your nails painted?"  She stopped and stared and worked her mouth. "Yes." Whoa! Connie agreed to interact with us! She abruptly rummaged through the colors of polish, quickly picked out her color and looked at us. We quickly moved to an area where there was seating and Silvia and I each took a hand.  We asked Connie questions, trying to get her to engage more but she wouldn't. She just sat there and looked at us painting her nails.  A staff member walked by and stopped.  She greeted Connie and then told us that we should feel special that Connie was allowing us to do her nails. We said we did feel honored and the staff member said, "No, you don't understand.  Connie doesn't let anyone - even staff - do that for her."  WOW.  Once Connie's nails were dry enough she shuffled off and Silvia and I did a little victory fist pump.  Somehow, in a way we don't understand, we broke through Connie's wall for just a moment and spoke value over her. We believed something may have shifted in her heart, for the rest of the time we were there that day she had a softer look on her face. I don't call that insignificant, I consider that to be of the utmost significance.  

So what can YOU do? What move can you make?  What is something you can DO?  Remember, it doesn't have to be loud and splashy, cost a lot of money, or be somewhere in another part of this big world.  Here's some ideas to get your hands and feet moving:

• Create homeless bags (also called Blessing Bags by some) for the people in your town.  
• Hold a coat/hat/glove drive and drop them off to your local Rescue Mission.
• Host a diaper/wipes drive and make a delivery to your local Pregnancy Center.
• Clean out your closet and find an organization that will help people find jobs and needs to dress them.
• Purchase nail colors and home manicure items and delivery them to a nursing home - stay and paint nails for the afternoon!
• Look for local organizations that offer maintenance services to single moms and offer to lend a hand - anyone can paint! :) 
• Donate non-perishable food items to a local food bank.
• Has that neighbor's weedy yard been bugging you? Go de-weed it for them! 
• Stalk the local grocery store and offer to carry groceries for elderly and disabled/injured people or parents with not enough arms to handle both groceries and children. 
• Find a store that still has doors that you have to manually open and be an unofficial doorperson for an hour or two. Offer your assistance and a smile, maybe it's the only smile that person will see all day. 
• Go hand out cold water to your postal carrier, garbage service drivers, etc.

See? The ideas and possibilities of how to be literal hands and feet to others is endless.  So what are you waiting for?  Make a move and do something! 

Corners

When IT happens I get on the phone with my husband or search him out in the house and after he hears me out he sighs deeply and says, "God bless your generous heart.  Let me go look at the budget." And you know what?  More often than not he okays it, which just goes to show you that I'm not the only one with a generous heart in our family.

IT are the needs I hear about, I observe, I am burdened for almost on a daily basis, certainly on a weekly one. The last one that really got me was The Amazing Race. Yes, a TV show.  The teams raced to Bangladesh. And I'm watching the show and knowing, as my heart started beating faster, that the minute the camera crews panned the city they landed in I would be done for.  Sure enough. The minute the teams stepped outside the airport and cabbed in to the city and I got a glimpse of the streets I discovered tears streaming down my face. My youngest redhead patted my arm and said, "Oh Mommy.  It's so bad. Mommy where are the women and girls?" We saw together the trash and the filth and the poverty both in material possessions and soul. And we saw together that there were no women, no girls.  Where were they? I didn't know what I could do except step up and enter into the life of one.  After all, it only takes one domino to tip them all over right?  And so I logged on to Compassion that night and I found the oldest girl that had been waiting the longest time for a family to enter in to life with her in some way and she became a part of our family.  One girl in Bangladesh is now getting education, food, medical care and so is her family. One girl now will have a chance.

The corners of my life is something I think about pretty much everyday and try to be mindful of.  The idea of keeping corners in my life comes from Deuteronomy 24:19-21 in the New Living Translation (NLT) and it says, “When you are harvesting your crops and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field, don’t go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all you do. When you beat the olives from your olive trees, don’t go over the boughs twice. Leave the remaining olives for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. When you gather the grapes in your vineyard, don’t glean the vines after they are picked. Leave the remaining grapes for the foreigners, orphans, and widows.”  To break that down what God is saying is that whatever kind of harvest you are bringing in don't go back and gather what may have been overlooked, left behind, or dropped. Leave it as provision for the foreigners, orphans, and widows.  Leave a corner of your field as provision for others.

A few years ago I read those verses and I was so struck by the implications and by the intent that I began to think about corners of my life and how they could be provision for others. About the same time a video came out that talked about corners. How odd right? *wink* Check out the video that helped define my thoughts.

In my own life I have expanded the concept of leaving a corner.  Yes, there is a very real material/physical poverty in this world that needs to be met, but the emotional and spiritual poverty in this world is just as real and perhaps even more pervasive than the material/physical. Those three types of poverty: material/physical, emotional, and spiritual have needs that each of us can help meet, if only we will leave a corner in our lives for them.

I look at my life and I examine myself.  Do I have a corner available not just for the "least of these" in material/physical poverty  but the "least of these" that are in emotional and spiritual poverty as well? Have I left a corner of my life available to meet all the different kinds of poverty that people experience as God empowers and equips me to?

Meeting IT can seem overwhelming. We live in a culture that discounts the small or barely noticeable and only acknowledges the loud, the grandiose, the over-the-top. So we shrink back from extending the Dixie cup size of water to the thirsty because our culture doesn't acknowledge it as enough. But it is enough.  In some cases it is more than enough! Check out what Jesus says about this in Matthew 10 in The Message, "We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.” (vs. 40-42)  Don't be overwhelmed, open up corners as you are prompted - the size of the corners that open in your life are going to vary according to the needs God knows are going to be presented to you.  And when you leave the corners available for gleaning you will see the gift of God's provision.

Part of the reason God has told us to leave corners untouched so they can be gleaned is so we maintain gratitude for the way he has provided for us. In the day-to-day grind we can easily lose sight of how we are taken care of.  This past year I've been focusing on gratitude. And it's kinda hard.  Some days I sit there racking my brain for anything that I was thankful for that day.  It's sad to say some days I can't come up with anything.  But eventually I do.  There have been some days that I have realized how grateful I am for something and God has followed it up with, "Okay, so whatcha gonna do about it? How are you going to pay that forward?"  I've learned that those are corners he is directing me to. He's calling attention to corners in my life that are ready to be gleaned. One day I realized how grateful I was for literacy.  And as I was sharing my Gratitude Attitude about literacy I realized it was a corner in my life and I needed to invite people to glean from it.  So I pursued literacy tutoring in my city and now I am a literacy tutor and helping kids learn how to read so they can have confidence in their education and future careers.  Through tutoring that corner in my life is being gleaned.

The corners God asks us to leave open for others don't have to be "super spiritual", it's about meeting a need. Let God be the one who decides how it will provide in that person's life. Be available to be a corner for the material/physical needs, the emotional needs, and the spiritual needs of others.  Invite them to glean

from what has been provided for you. The challenge I give myself, and you, is this: What kind of corner work is God asking us, individually and at times collectively, to participate in today? this week? this month? this year? this life?

Amazima Ministries and Katie Davis

That's one. 

That's two.   

"I didn't find it, it was just in the Bible." 

Katie's response to people's comments about her "finding" God's call on her life. 

Not much else to say is there? 

Read the book; you'll be blessed, challenged, inspired. 

Can one person make a difference?

Yes. 

Why? 

Because of Christ. 

Can YOU make a difference?

Yes.

Why?

Because of Christ.