tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323565762024-03-14T03:21:09.488-05:00PETER HARRITS: NEW SPECSSPECTACLES:
1) Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature. A public performance or display, especially one on a large or lavish scale. A regrettable public display.
2) A pair of eyeglasses.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger290125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-43039190767724508312022-02-14T15:15:00.004-06:002022-02-14T15:23:00.441-06:00A Change in Direction<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMDZOEYGjj0NakTjtgbb3URZkzayKVcRUtqBj6G8Jn66RaE5TBTvW0DWbFR0TL3N1QiVt9a7DnSHMRd0di2EuVC3Yw96WZ0EsGwE2vMd_bGBNYhx1H0yWB9NnXRLFNpU-5aEpkmFIFCHyywpSbTKOYa0HMKfCqJmPtbZIgq4kYf9LHl3eaUw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMDZOEYGjj0NakTjtgbb3URZkzayKVcRUtqBj6G8Jn66RaE5TBTvW0DWbFR0TL3N1QiVt9a7DnSHMRd0di2EuVC3Yw96WZ0EsGwE2vMd_bGBNYhx1H0yWB9NnXRLFNpU-5aEpkmFIFCHyywpSbTKOYa0HMKfCqJmPtbZIgq4kYf9LHl3eaUw=w640-h360" title="Iringa in the Rainy Season - March 2014" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">There’s a line from T.S. Eliot that has accompanied me for several years now. It comes from his 1941 Poem “Little Gidding” and it goes something like this:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i>We shall not cease from exploration<br />And the end of all our exploring<br />Will be to arrive where we started<br />And know the place for the first time.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I have carried it with me around the world and back again, multiple times over. It has spoken to my own love of exploration and sense of wanderlust. Now, however, it takes on a different kind of resonance – that of a homecoming of sorts. For, you see, after 8 years and 31 days, 342,000 miles flown, and countless cups of chai, impromptu dance breaks, and “Bwana Yesu Asifiwe’s” my time as <a href="https://spas-elca.org/mission/global-mission/tanzania/" target="_blank">Director of Bega Kwa Bega</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>on behalf of the Saint Paul Area Synod will be coming to a close in a few weeks’ time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">There’s been a change in direction. I’ve received a new call.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This past weekend the people of <a href="https://www.sotv.org/" target="_blank">Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>in Apple Valley, Minnesota voted to call me as their next ‘Learn Pastor’ – tasked, as I describe it, with accompanying the congregation as they intentionally seek to learn with and from one another, their local/global neighbors, and God’s story that enfolds us all. After careful and prayerful deliberation, my family and I have agreed to move forward in this new direction.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">If you know me and my story, you’ll know that SOTV is one of my homeplaces. It is the location of my first ‘real’ job out of college as a youth worker. It is the community that surrounded us when Jenny and I were married, when our daughters were baptized, and when we mourned the passing of our elders. It was there, with them, in 2002 that this current journey of exploration I’m on began. The world has shifted – I’ve shifted – in the intervening twenty years and, while I hesitate to call this next step ‘the end of all exploring,’ this is a time to arrive where I started and a chance to know the place for the first time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Shepherding the relationship between the Saint Paul Area Synod and the ELCT Iringa Diocese these past several years has been a joy and an honor. It has also been a lot of work – work that has been meaningful and well suited to the questions and curiosities I carry as well as the sense of purpose and values that drive me. Stepping away from this role and seeking a new place in this international network of relationships is no easy task. As I prepare to move on, I know I do not walk alone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">At its heart, <i>Accompaniment</i> is about those places where our lives intersect – where gifts to the world that one has to offer meet the needs of another and vice versa. During my time as Director of Bega Kwa Bega I’ve been privileged to share life space with so many: committee members and congregational representatives; students and volunteers and engineers and doctors and teachers and pastors and on and on and on. Americans and Tanzanians, companions on a journey, sharing the best of what they have to offer for the benefit of the other. My life has been changed as a result of each of those encounters. I hope and trust and pray that what I have had to offer has been to their benefit as well.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">There will be more in the weeks to come. For now, however, I’m filled with gratitude for the journey we have shared -and continue to share – and the unexpected places and ways in which God’s Holy Spirit beckons and calls. All thanks be to God.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-48468354526476347522021-10-11T14:29:00.015-05:002021-11-08T16:41:56.494-06:00Only God Gives the Growth<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ha_hiYWwlKk/YYmlsfwFjZI/AAAAAAACAeQ/tMyZscLjmM8SrRWtUa7cu3cxACF6Vk3AwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_2590.HEIC" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'My' Parachichi - Iringa 2021" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ha_hiYWwlKk/YYmlsfwFjZI/AAAAAAACAeQ/tMyZscLjmM8SrRWtUa7cu3cxACF6Vk3AwCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/IMG_2590.HEIC" title="'My' Parachichi - Iringa 2021" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div>“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” - 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (NRSV)</div><div><br /></div><div>There’s a tree I check in on every time I visit the head office of the Iringa Diocese. It is located behind the reception building and the small lounge with a TV where pastors and church leaders from further afield wait to meet with staff members whose offices form a ring around the courtyard. The tree is an avocado tree and it came from the Millions of Trees project near the back of the head office compound.</div><div> </div><div>I check on this tree because I planted it.</div><div> </div><div>Or, more accurately, because I helped to plant it. Most of the work was done by my Tanzanian colleagues – including the Treasurer of the Diocese and the late Amos Mkuye, Lead Building Technician at that time. Most of my ‘work’ involved placing the seedling in the hole that they had dug and fertilized. Someone else even did the initial watering.</div><div> </div><div>Still, the tree is somehow mine and I do care for it. After more than a year and half away from Iringa, I wondered how my little tree was doing. When I walked back to the courtyard a couple weeks ago, I noticed that some of the other trees that were planted had withered away or been replaced. I was worried until I rounded the corner and saw it again. In February of 2020 it was small enough that you’d need to crouch down to give it a hug; now it is taller than me. My how it has grown…</div><div> </div><div>That’s a sentiment that has surfaced time and time again during the whirlwind of the past three weeks and my first trip back to Iringa since the pandemic began. From the mountains of Bomalang’ombe to the rift valley sands near Ruaha, there’s been so much growth across this web of relationship that we share.</div><div> </div><div>As much as we may want to center the story on ourselves, this time of being together and apart is a reminder that growth can be attributed to God and God alone, and signs of that growth can be found everywhere…</div><div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">* The roots of this relationship run deep. On my first Friday in Tanzania, I was called to participate in a memorial service in Iringa for a member of their companion congregation who had passed away that week in St. Paul. This individual was known as ‘Babu’ and the congregation mourned his passing as if he was their own. In ways large and small, he was and still is with them – in spirit, now, if not in flesh. While the buildings and projects he supported still stand, it is his faithful friendship and their mutual fellowship that was remembered and honored on that day.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* God’s church continues to grow. This past weekend I saw multiple preaching points and other projects in various stages of completion in Ifunda parish alone. Recent ‘Ambassador Visits’ by Astine & Ryan have documented similar stories in half a dozen other congregations. Payment requests and transaction records in the office indicate that we are finding ways to work together in a myriad of ways. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div>* Schools are full and students are performing well. They are in the middle of graduation season in Iringa, the time of year when Form IV students at each of the diocese-owned secondary schools receive their diplomas and academic awards. With songs and dances and skits galore, these are multi-hour celebratory affairs. A month ago, Pastor Lwila shared about the good performance of students in Form VI and just last week, a joint review board approved $15,000 in new scholarship awards for 31 students in post-secondary programs.<br /><br />* Affiliated development projects continue to flourish. Take Iringa Hope as one example. After being dedicated in April 2021, their new Market Center officially opened on Monday, Oct. 4, with a ceremony that included speeches from church leaders, the University of Iringa, and a member of parliament. Built on a relational foundation 30 years strong and after a decade of investments in SACCOS and AMCOS, the Market Center will provide a central storage place for crops close to transportation and will help small farmers by obtaining a better price for them. Elsewhere, wells continue to be dug, trees are planted, and a new tower for Radio Furaha will soon be sprouting up on the hills overlooking Iringa Town.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">* New paths are opening up. At the suggestion of Pastor Lwila and Scholarship Clerk Frank Mkocha, a local media group is now creating a documentary movie about the BKB Scholarship Program and its impact in local communities. Together with Astine and Ryan Bose, the team in Iringa is finding digital ways to bridge relationships through platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom and will be looking into ways to safely reintroduce travel once global conditions improve.</div><div> </div><div>As I wait for my flight back to the United States today, I can confidently say that the state of this relationship remains strong and growing – all thanks be to God. And all thanks be to you, as well. While growth can be attributed to God, each of us has our small part to play. Whether it be planting or watering, digging deep or praying fervently, tupo pamoja. We are together.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Originally published 7 Oct 2021 in the <a href="https://spas-elca.org/only-god-gives-the-growth/" target="_blank">BKB Companion News Update</a>.</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-87140993539568714622021-08-25T16:22:00.003-05:002021-11-08T16:35:40.025-06:00Does This Offend You?<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOQmz1YqqLg/YYmi0E-0aDI/AAAAAAACAeA/V_HUvubrc5stnGuhGuLwGnTGv35gj38WACLcBGAsYHQ/s1547/IMG_4328.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cross on a Mud Spattered Wall - Tanzania 2018" border="0" data-original-height="1547" data-original-width="1547" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOQmz1YqqLg/YYmi0E-0aDI/AAAAAAACAeA/V_HUvubrc5stnGuhGuLwGnTGv35gj38WACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/IMG_4328.jpg" title="Cross on a Mud Spattered Wall - Tanzania 2018" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Jesus' followers said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you?</i> " <i>(John 6:60b-61)</i></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Does this offend you?” It is a line that snags me precisely because it runs against the dominant image of Jesus I’ve grown accustomed to… The one that is soft and fuzzy, with warm colors and a golden glow. Smiling Jesus... Gentle Jesus... Surrounded by children and lambs perhaps.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">As we saw in early March and the story of Jesus chasing out the money changers in John, Chapter 2, this is a different depiction of Jesus than the one I’m comfortable with. This is a Jesus who provokes, who prods, who challenges… Someone who asks his closest followers point blank, “Do you also wish to go away?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The question “Does this offend you?” grabs my attention because it offends<i> my </i>sensitivities and sensibilities, the way<i> I</i> think things should be, and that, I'd like to suggest, is something worth tending to...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">As a pastor/preacher/teacher/coach, I love a good question. Whether it is leading a bible study, starting a meeting, or helping travel delegations process their visits with their companions in places like Iringa, I certainly have my own list of go-to’s that includes 'gems' like these:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>+ “Where have you seen God at work in your life, community, or world?"</i> </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>+ “How have you encountered Jesus in the last week, month, or year?” </i><br /></span><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">+ “When have you tasted the fruits of the Spirit?”</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">To that list, I now want to add this: <i>“When, where, and how has Jesus offended you?”</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">We dodge questions of anger and angst at our own peril. There’s truth in our guts that goes unexplored and unrevealed if we are content to grumble along at the surface or skitter away at the slightest ripple of discord. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Provocative, yes... If Jesus’ question “Does this offend you?” opens a door to greater knowing, it’s follow-up in verse 67 (“Do you wish to go away?”) lands with a forceful punch. Simon Peter hangs with it and his response comes from his gut, “Lord, to whom can we go?” Bypassing questions of propriety and the calculus about whether a teaching is too difficult to be accepted, his confession and statement of belief are embodied. “You have the words of eternal life… You are the Holy One of God.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">As part of my call in Tanzania and Saint Paul, I’ve been doing some work in the area of Intercultural Development – helping people to more faithfully and more deeply accompany their neighbors at home and abroad. As part of that work, I’ve begun to learn just how much of our lives are shaped by many layers of culture and just how much of that exists outside our primary awareness. Each of us floats through life like little icebergs unto ourselves, largely unaware of the mass of feelings, beliefs, and attitudes that we carry along with us well below the surface…</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Largely unaware, that is, until collisions occur… until the assumptions that buoy us along run smack into an alternate set from somebody else. Largely, that is, until there is conflict or offense.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is in those moments of impact that unchecked assumptions are brought to the surface… that embodied and enculturated beliefs, attitudes, and practices that order your life -that you didn’t even know about- are made plain. Once made plain, you can explore where they come from, how they shape you, and what you might do with them in the future…</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, again, I ask you, “When, where, and how has Jesus offended you?” </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">+ Does sharing Christ’s love become offensive when you realize it includes someone whose politics run counter to yours?</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">+ Does tending to the vulnerable or bringing healing to the sick become offensive when it asks you to curtail some of your own individual liberties?</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">+ Do calls for God’s justice become offensive when they shift from words on lips to feet on the streets?</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you’ve eve been offended, take heart. Congratulations… You are human! Saint and Sinner, one and the same. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The bigger challenge is in what comes next… Do you run with that surface level response and mutter about this offense or the other -or- do you stand strong and dig deep… wondering what that response in yourself means mean and why?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whenever and wherever you find offense, take a breath and stand strong. Lean into it. Note where it lands in your body. Look for the assumptions it surfaces. Why are you reacting the way that you are? What is informing your response and what can you do about it?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">As they were for Simon Peter, those points of impact and moments of offense -legitimately painful, though they may be- can be revelatory IF you dare to accept the invitation to explore what’s below the surface… what you really believe with the deepest, sometimes darkest, most often unknown fibers of your very being. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Make no bones about it, this is soul work and it is no easy task and not for the faint of heart. The arc of John, Chapter 6 makes this clear as the physically satiated and contented crowd turns away. The Good News here is that even as he provokes and prods and offends, Jesus does not turn his back on anyone. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">He is there and He is here -God’s WORD, Spirit, and Life- even as we grumble and fumble about. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">All thanks be to God. Amen.</span></p><div><br /></div><p><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Originally delivered as part of a Message at Saint Paul Lutheran, Wyoming, MN on 22 August 2021.</span></i> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-11201764154784013002021-06-24T11:25:00.004-05:002021-06-24T11:31:09.589-05:00Called to Order (A Prayer)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ud352SzVHeE/YNSvQXt3RSI/AAAAAAAB9bw/AWerEd0SjOkhG2XuIa1ynGi7YHVR76rdACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_1481.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ud352SzVHeE/YNSvQXt3RSI/AAAAAAAB9bw/AWerEd0SjOkhG2XuIa1ynGi7YHVR76rdACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_1481.JPG" title="Minnesota State Capitol Dome - August 2017" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A Prayer for the <a href="https://www.house.leg.state.mn.us" target="_blank">Minnesota House of Representatives</a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Offered 24 June 2021 by Zoom.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>Let us pray. Tuombe.</div><div> <br />Dear God of all Creation, in these first few days of summer we give you thanks for the gift of life and the abundance of the world that we share. </div><div><br /> You set the sun and the moon in motion in their dance across the sky. <br /><br /></div><div> You formed the land and scooped the seas and shaped creatures great and small.<br /><br /></div><div> You crafted a delicate web that began before us and will stretch on well beyond.<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dear God of all Peoples, you created us in your image. In your image, you created us. Male and Female, with many shades of skin, styles of hair, cultures and traditions, you created us. <br /><br /></div><div> You tasked us to be fruitful and be prudent... </div><div> ...to steward the resources you have entrusted us with for the flourishing of all. <br /><br /></div><div> Save us from the temptation to turn our eyes inward... </div><div> ...to put ourselves over and above others. <br /><br /></div><div> Set us in right relationship with one another and the natural world. <br /><br /></div><div> Equip us to cross lines that divide. <br /><br /></div><div> Empower us to bless others with what we have been gifted. <br /><br /></div><div> Humble us to receive what it is that our neighbors have to teach and to share. <br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dear God of all Seasons, as a particularly frigid winter gives way to blistering heat and pandemic tides begin to ebb, we trust that there is a time for everything under heaven. <br /><br /></div><div> Be with us today in this time of work. Guide conversations and open hearts. <br /><br /></div><div> Be with us too, when all is made good, so that we, your people, may know rest. <br /><br /></div><div>Amen.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div></div><div><i> </i></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-41457407600056561822021-06-06T10:03:00.015-05:002021-06-21T10:48:56.505-05:00On Nakedness & Knowledge<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqX6wOLfqTo/YNCrIxq-bCI/AAAAAAAB9Xw/QVCam8YgAdgFraXefLtZPw9kLaX5F84kgCPcBGAsYHg/s3024/IMG_1421.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqX6wOLfqTo/YNCrIxq-bCI/AAAAAAAB9Xw/QVCam8YgAdgFraXefLtZPw9kLaX5F84kgCPcBGAsYHg/w400-h400/IMG_1421.HEIC" title="Back to the Office - June 2021" width="400" /></a></p><div>Knowledge and revelation… as we consider <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A8-15&version=NRSV" target="_blank">today’s reading</a> from the book of Genesis, I ask you to keep these two words parked in the front of your mind: Knowledge and revelation</div><div><br /></div><div>At the same time, I ask you to hold onto two images as well. The first is a garden in the evening, where God walks as a gentle breeze rustles the leaves. The second is a little pair of Minnie Mouse underpants, strewn casually on a hardwood kitchen floor.</div><div><br /></div><div>“Blessed daughter of mine,” or something to that effect, “for the love of all that’s Holy and Good would you please put on your underpants… or anything, really, in addition to your chef’s hat and apron.” The plea was halfhearted at best… <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD3K_LBaCN9IjXZRAD_EZlLk1m2RXRTS41c7o0/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">59 days into the pandemic</a> last spring and our new reality of juggling work, toddler-care, and infant-care had worn us down. While we tried our best, keeping the two-year old in her clothes was not at the top of our hierarchy of needs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Truth be told, however, I don’t know that it was the pandemic at play as much as it was the nature of being that age. Rumor has it when I was that little, I used to enjoy a post-bath saunter through the house in the evening and a peek out the window into our back yard – enjoying the view and the breeze.</div><div><br /></div><div>There’s something about childhood and nakedness and carefree innocence… </div><div><br /></div><div>Until -suddenly- there’s not. </div><div><br /></div><div>There’s learning… there’s growth… there’s knowledge… there’s awareness and there’s fear.</div><div><br /></div><div>There’s also no going back. Once you know you are naked, well… you know.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” </div><div><br /></div><div>While there’s wordplay in the original language that gets lost in translation here, with ‘being naked’ and ‘being crafty or clever’ having a linguistic similarity, one need not be a scholar of Hebrew to observe that the knowledge acquired in verses 1:7 through the eating of the forbidden fruit leads to the awareness and fear in today’s text.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fear, here, comes not because man and woman disobeyed God. Rather, the man says, “I was afraid because I was naked.” </div><div><br /></div><div>While today’s reading is often described of as a fall, I wonder if it is better understood as a story of maturation and growth… Of knowledge and revelation…</div><div><br /></div><div>There was something about carefree innocence until -suddenly- with the tasting of the fruit, there was not. Suddenly the man -or- humankind is exposed… self-consciously aware and vulnerable. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is as if humanity suddenly grew up.</div><div><br /></div><div>Reflecting back on the year that we have had, I have sympathy for the man in the story and his feeble attempts to hide among the trees – naked and aware. </div><div><br /></div><div>With a global pandemic, social unrest, righteous calls for racial justice, and political division threatening statehouses and family dinners, many of the things in which I have placed my trust and security have, in fact, been tattered if not entirely stripped away. Foundational myths and assumptions about the way things are and supply chains that deliver things like toilet-paper and computer chips… Those things have ALL been disrupted. Naivete, if not innocence, has been lost. </div><div><br /></div><div>Our nakedness has been revealed… again.</div><div><br /></div><div>And this time, it was revealed not by an apple or a serpent, but by a virus .125 microns in size, by the ticking of a clock and the 9 minutes and 29 seconds a police officer kneeled on a man’s neck as the world looked on, by fires and food deserts in our city cores and insecure employment all around.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this time of revelation and disruption, there’s been learning… there’s been growth… there’s been knowledge… there’s been awareness and, Lord knows, there’s been fear.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even as these disruptions subside. Even as we return to familiar spaces like this sanctuary, there’s still no going back. The world has shifted. We have shifted. You have shifted too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now we know and we cannot/ should not/must not try to unknow all that we have learned.</div><div><br /></div><div>Knowing more than we did before, our responsibility to love and serve God and neighbors only deepens. Easy enough to say, this is a lot harder to do… especially with base instincts in each of us as old as Adam.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Lord God asked the man, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” And thus the blame-game begins as man blames woman, woman blames the serpent, the serpent is cursed and a violent cycle of naming, blaming, and shaming spins up that shapes the world to this day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Called to love and serve and turn the other cheek, the story names that the instinct to lash out and strike the heel with a venomous word or deed that is always just below the surface in each of us… Saints and Sinners one and all. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thank God, then, for a God who enjoys the evening breeze and garden trees. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thank God for a God who meets us where we are, even in our hiding places, mindful of our own nakedness, fragility and brokenness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let us thank God for a God who knows the inward curve of our interests and sends God’s Son to show us the way and save us from ourselves time and time again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let us thank God for a God whose Spirit abides, comforting, guiding, gathering, and inspiring God’s people in all times and all places… in Saint Paul and Iringa and in Newport and Kimala.</div><div><br /></div><div>If the last year has revealed our nakedness, vulnerability, and fear, it has also revealed where and how God meets us where we are. One of the gifts of serving on Synod Staff is the ability to see and to share what is happening in and among the 110 congregations and 108,000 people who compose this expression of God’s church. As we close our time together, I’ll share a couple stories I’m familiar with and ask you to consider your own. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One year ago this week, thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid (both cash and in-kind donations) poured into Bethlehem Lutheran Church in the Midway as a response to the ‘sudden appearance’ of a food desert in the middle of the family.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the wake of the unrest and protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, grocery stores and retailers – including my Target on University Ave- were impacted. With stores shuttered and mass transit ground to a halt, lower-income families in the neighborhood found themselves cut off both from food, medicine, and baby supplies as well as their primary forms of transportation to get to work and resources elsewhere in the city. Over in Minneapolis a similar scenario was playing out at Holy Trinity on Lake Street.</div><div><br /></div><div>In both instances people of faith stepped up and responded to the urgency pleas of their neighbors. In the heat of the moment and cool of the evening, God was there as doors were opened for medics to provide care to those injured on the streets. In the face of great uncertainty, God was there as leadership teams improvised their way though questions they had never considered before with a posture of, “Yes, and…” God was there as word trickled out through grassroots connections and social media channels and others stepped in to help as they could… first by the handful, then by the car-full, and then by the truck-full… from elsewhere in the city to the suburbs, exurbs, and rural places God’s people did not hide.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pushing the story deeper, crises like pandemics and civil unrest have a way of imparting knowledge and bringing revelation – or the seeing things as they really are. For many members of Bethlehem and others who took the lead in that response, the impact of that time has been just as consequential for them as the knowledge gained by man and woman all the way back in the garden. What shifted for the players in both stories was not their nakedness or vulnerability, but their awareness of their condition and response to it…</div><div><br /></div><div>It turns out that the food desert everyone was responding to didn’t just suddenly appear. What changed was people’s knowledge of it… Food insecurity was not caused by the civil unrest. Instead, it has been a longstanding concern of people who call that neighborhood home and is the result of decades of public policies, real estate deals, and often unarticulated biases. </div><div><br /></div><div>Like the tasting of the fruit, the crisis brought knowledge… Nakedness and vulnerability have been revealed in the heart of our cities. The question for all of us is this: What have we learned and what will we do? Do we fall into the vicious cycle of he said > she said > the serpent made me do it? Or do we fall in behind Jesus, who shows another way?</div><div><br /></div><div>Switching gears and zooming out, the pandemic has had a similar effect on our global relationships. While the partnership we share with companions in Tanzania is described as Bega Kwa Bega… shoulder to shoulder… being done in a manner that is mutual and reciprocal, most of the work I’m tasked with directing has been focused on helping folks like you meet the needs of people in places like Kimala through projects like a new water system. This last year flipped the script and revealed us and our own vulnerability as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>With the US bearing the brunt of COVID-19 infections throughout much of 2020, the self-made myth we project to rest the world of invincibility and strength was torn asunder. While we know the image is incomplete, for many of our companions in Iringa the way we were brought to our knees as a nation was a revelation. The flow of information and communication my office facilitates reversed as inquiries and offers of prayerful support and encouragement poured in from Tanzania and was directed to congregations like yours.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last June I was copied on an exchange between Pastor Sue and Pastor Moto in Kimala. Your friends halfway around the world heard of your heartbreak, suffering and loss. They were with you then, holding you in prayer, and they are with you now. And with them is God, enjoying the cool evening-air in the Tanzanian highlands, and the heat of a summer morning here in Minnesota.</div><div><br /></div><div>As we head into the unknowns of the days ahead, God is there and God is here. Let us not unlearn what we have learned. </div><div><br /></div><div>Even as you re-enter your building and life inches toward a sense of normalcy here, please continue to hold your companions in Kimala in prayer… Globally, we are not out of the pandemic woods and places like Tanzania are months -if not years- away from enjoying the kind of access to vaccines we may now take for granted. </div><div><br /></div><div>Closer to home, let us not unlearn the lessons from the last year either. Much has been revealed about the composition of our neighborhoods and the differences that make a difference between neighbors. Let us tend to those wounds and places of broken-openness with just as much care and concern.</div><div><br /></div><div>While what has been exposed on both fronts might make us uncomfortable, may we not hide behind the fig leaves and trees of feigned ignorance but, instead, listen for the sounds of God’s gracious footsteps among the rustling leaves. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then, when God calls, be bold enough to say, “Here I am.”</div><div><br /></div><p></p><p><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Originally delivered as part of a Message at Newport Lutheran Church, Newport, MN on 6 June 2021.</span></i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-38273551770024493122021-05-06T15:25:00.001-05:002021-05-20T15:33:45.813-05:00A Letter From the Future<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8rTtGoyU8U/YKbGhrhwktI/AAAAAAAB8lg/vdaIrIPQD7Y_2Jcp-ZaidNoSz3OprJNcgCPcBGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_6029.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8rTtGoyU8U/YKbGhrhwktI/AAAAAAAB8lg/vdaIrIPQD7Y_2Jcp-ZaidNoSz3OprJNcgCPcBGAsYHg/w400-h300/IMG_6029.HEIC" title="Grand Marais Harbor, June 2019" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dated: May 6, 2041</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Peter in 2021,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a lovely, early Spring morning here in Grand Marais. Although there’s a definite chill in the air, Jenny and I are enjoying our morning coffee on the deck watching the sea smoke rise off of Lake Superior. It never ceases to amaze. There’s greenness all around too as the gardens are slowly coming back to life. Daisy III and Kasper II are chasing squirrels and defending their/our territory. It isn’t a huge place, mind you, but it is beautiful and it is enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are grateful for the choices we made that allowed us to essentially retire early. Yes, we still work part-time at the folk school - but it is because we want to not because we have to. That freedom is pure gift.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The girls are doing well. Hazel just turned 21... While she says she didn’t get up to too many shenanigans, we remember her wild-streaks as a baby... giggling maniacally and slamming her back into her high chair. She still loves the water and has been quite the successful competitive swimmer in college. Hadley, now 24, is in Med School and is preparing for a summer internship with Doctors Without Borders. The time you’ve spent abroad as a family certainly formed and informed them as global citizens. They are your adventure buddies and where you’ve found true heart and meaning. Together the four of us have built a life that we love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Professionally, you’ve been around the world and back again a couple of times but you’ve somehow always come back to the Twin Cities. The ‘drifting stone’ tattoo you inked yourself with when you returned from Malaysia has long given way to a baobab tree from Tanzania... As much as you like to roam, you are rooted and connected in ways you can hardly imagine now. You’ve been a Pastor, an Executive Director, a Student, and a Teacher. While the roles have been varied, the through-line has always been creating community and accompanying others as they live into their gifts and who they are called to be.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has been, and continues to be, quite the ride. Hold on tight! </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">-Peter in the Future</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-32761587898632106542021-04-25T10:22:00.005-05:002021-06-21T10:48:28.676-05:00The Good Shepherd, Twice Considered<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5ivyKIlpk6c/YNCwwy7uX2I/AAAAAAAB9Yk/F4mU8-0UH-oGMftSLu8eHGVaPsYMS4ErACPcBGAsYHg/s2100/TZ180.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="2100" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5ivyKIlpk6c/YNCwwy7uX2I/AAAAAAAB9Yk/F4mU8-0UH-oGMftSLu8eHGVaPsYMS4ErACPcBGAsYHg/w400-h266/TZ180.JPG" title="The Herd Moves - August 2004" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>The image of the Good Shepherd that we encounter in<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10%3A11-18&version=NRSV" target="_blank"> today’s reading</a> from the Gospel of John – “one who lays down his life for his sheep”- is one that has inspired, comforted, and challenged the Christian community for ages. </p><p>In the catacombs of Rome, for example, art historians note that the image of the Good Shepherd is one of the most common of the symbolic representations of Christ used by the early church. Found in frescoes that pre-date the legalization of Christianity in the year 313, the image of an <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=good+shepherd+calixtus&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi8sevrhqnxAhULYawKHT-MA90Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=good+shepherd+calixtus&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJzoCCAA6BAgAEBhQt8kBWNPWAWCE2AFoAHAAeACAAUeIAdYDkgEBN5gBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=1LHQYLz3JovCsQW_mI7oDQ&bih=764&biw=1440#imgrc=GyjHOn4JuN4bxM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">anonymous young man carrying a lamb round his neck</a> found resonance among the faithful as they gathered in the shadows on the edges of the empire. Even as persecution waned in the handful of centuries that followed, the gaunt image of the Good Shepherd continued to be prominent in the artwork and stories our predecessors in the faith left behind.</p><p>The early images of the Good Shepherd from the Catacombs of Rome contrast sharply with the more recent soft-focused, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=jesus+good+shepherd&sxsrf=ALeKk03WmU9BOr8eJyqZp4tMuFdrqvSaEw:1624290024864&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=i7XB-TuqWjsq3M%252CCoMdzSwXplScDM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQAEuCB_wY5tR8EhW71qAS1r_J1jw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwishsbvh6nxAhWNWc0KHZ7FA6wQ9QF6BAgUEAE&biw=1440&bih=764#imgrc=i7XB-TuqWjsq3M" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pastel-colored scenes that I grew up with</a>. Beginning in the 5th Century, as Christianity began to align with Empire, depictions of the Good Shepherd shifted as well. They began to take on a more ‘conventional’ Christ-like appearance. </p><p>And by conventional, here, what people really mean is more Western or European… dark skin tones whitewashed, tattered Roman-era garb turned into flowing robes, a youthful face now graced with a flowing golden-brown beard, often capped with a halo on top. Over the shoulders of one, there is a scrawny sheep while cradled in the arms of the other is an incredibly fluffy lamb... </p><p>In my take, one image of the Good Shepherd is the epitome of all things warm and fuzzy and pastoral, the latter has a scrappier quality, having been seasoned and tested in the field… Like someone who has been to hell and back.</p><p>The beauty (and challenge) of metaphors and images like Jesus as “the Good Shepherd” is that they meet us and reflect where we are at. Even as I flag the differences between these dueling images and encourage you to do the same, the catch that we must remember is that they depict One and the Same. Not either/or, Jesus the Christ embodies both the compassion of the one and the strength of the other…</p><p>If asked to pick which image “speaks” to me or “resonates” with me, most of the time I’d say it is the ‘softer,’ more recent of the two… It might be because that is the image I’ve seen time and time again. It might also be that what I’ve needed is a caretaker to comfort me.</p><p>Now, however, in this time and this place… in the wake of the Chauvin Trial and the murder of George Floyd, as community members keep vigil for Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, concertina wire surrounds government buildings, and the national guard remains stationed in the parking lot of my local Lunds & Byerlys, just outside of a Noodles & Co and across from a Caribou, it is the earlier and scrappier image that rings true… </p><p>Acutely aware of the brokenness in the world around me, the Shepherd I need is the one who was marked on underground walls during a period of duress… One who clearly will go whatever distance is required to save his wayward sheep – even to the grave… even from themselves...</p><p><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Part of a Message, originally delivered at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Apple Valley, MN on 25 April 2021.<a href="https://vimeo.com/541005012" target="_blank"> Video recording available here</a>. </span></i></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-59447742984959177922021-03-12T16:53:00.006-06:002021-03-24T12:20:45.266-05:00Life Upended<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HU-u5M_lAo4/YEvv_eajegI/AAAAAAAB7HA/Ox8NJGJmTVMYIe9PVIX1GiAjr23XhS6FgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1936/60435130529__1082377C-0EB3-445E-B1B8-DC6DFD01AE26.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="1936" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HU-u5M_lAo4/YEvv_eajegI/AAAAAAAB7HA/Ox8NJGJmTVMYIe9PVIX1GiAjr23XhS6FgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/60435130529__1082377C-0EB3-445E-B1B8-DC6DFD01AE26.JPG" title="Airport Lounge in Dar es Salaam, 25 Feb 2020" width="400" /></a></div><br />One year ago this week… the world as we -or at least, as I- knew it shut down.<p></p><p style="text-align: left;">I starting hearing inklings of this new or novel coronavirus when I was preparing to fly back to the United States at the end of February. Transiting through Amsterdam, part of the steady stream of people, pulsing through planes and checkpoints, I was struck (as I often am… or was…) by the interconnected beauty of the world in which we live and the systems we’ve built in order to connect with one another. For the first time, however, that beauty was tempered by another awareness… a vague sense of fragility and dis-ease.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />On March 3rd my family and I were wrapping up a short vacation to see my brother in California. Even with a reports of a cruise ship off the coast with infected passengers unable to disembark, we were largely unaware and unconcerned of what was to come.</p><p style="text-align: left;"> <br />On March 5th I met with my committee chair to do some agenda planning and recall suggesting that we add COVID-19 to it on the off chance it became a problem for travelers. By the time that meeting came around, on March 9th, COVID-19 contingency planning became the primary focus of our discussion.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />On March 12 we had a synod council meeting… 24 people sitting shoulder to shoulder in a small, enclosed room with moderate amounts of ventilation. Unfathomable now but completely normal then. A couple of our larger congregations had just announced that they were going to pause in-person activities out of an abundance of caution; for most others it was business as usual.</p><p style="text-align: left;"> <br />The next day, March 13, 2020 is when everything seemed to close… and the world seemed to flip upside down - as easily a money changer’s table in the temple court…</p><p style="text-align: left;"> <br />Coins and cattle scatter everywhere. Toilet paper and bleach disappear. Everyday folks like you and me scramble to figure out What. Just. Happened.</p><p style="text-align: left;">And, what do we do now.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It hasn’t been just a pandemic either… Again and again, the world that many of us have comfortably taken for granted has been upended:</p>+ On May 25th, 2020… Eighteen miles away from here… Over the course of 8 minutes and 46 seconds the world was upended again as George Floyd was killed while in the custody of police.<div><br />+ On November 3rd 2020… Americans went to the polls in a hotly debated and hugely divisive election that both sides claimed was for nothing less than the soul of the nation… the results of reverberate to this day.</div><div><br />+ On January 6th, 2021… Supporters of then-President Trump stormed the United States Capitol in an unprecedented assault on our elected leaders doing their duly appointed jobs.<br /><p style="text-align: left;">+ And this says nothing of the coups and political turbulence in other countries, the climate crises triggering wild fires out west and a deep freeze in the deep south, or the personal traumas that come with unemployment, unexpected diagnoses, and losses of all stripes.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />The point of rehearsing and rehashing these recent histories is not to add to the world’s litany of woes…</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Instead, it is to name that as we enter the Lenten Journey this year and encounter the surprising image of Jesus <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+2%3A13-22&version=NRSV" target="_blank">in today’s text</a>, we do so -or, at least, I do so- with a stronger, lived sense of the powerful dynamics at play when systems and ways of being are turned on their head.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />These days and these times are marked both by upset and discord as well as the new life and new periods of creativity that come when the status quo is chucked out the door. </p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />There is Good News here, I promise you that. How it lands, however, depends a lot on where one sits... </p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Lora, serif; text-indent: -24px;">Originally delivered as part of a Message at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Saint Paul, MN on 7 March 2021. For a video of the complete message,<a href="https://youtu.be/g4tdHs5A2J0"> click here</a>. </i></p><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-1410406371461145522021-01-25T22:36:00.007-06:002021-06-21T10:49:17.995-05:00And Immediately They Dropped Everything<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ptnGr_X1L4/YA-YjreXpAI/AAAAAAAB6rs/g0sHzT55tDsHMBiHIs2JvNwMBgbdb2hNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_20180714_145257.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4ptnGr_X1L4/YA-YjreXpAI/AAAAAAAB6rs/g0sHzT55tDsHMBiHIs2JvNwMBgbdb2hNQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_20180714_145257.jpg" title="Off Roading, July 2018" width="640" /></a></div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><div style="color: #131822; font-size: 12pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #131822; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>It was 2018. The skies above Idete were a brilliant shade of blue, as they almost always are during the months of June and July. Whisps of white cirrus clouds danced atop the surrounding mountains who were, themselves, cloaked in the dark greenery of pine trees that framed the narrow, mountain road we were driving on as well. Thanks to recent rains, where they appeared, the patches of grass and groundcover along the roadside were likewise dense and green.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">And therein was the problem.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">My colleague and I were in Idete to celebrate the Installation of a new District Pastor – someone to serve on behalf of their Bishop as a pastor to the pastors in the remote villages that dot the valleys and high ridges in this far, Southeastern Corner of the Iringa Region. It was quite the affair, as gatherings of this type often are, full of pomp and circumstance and speeches punctuated by informal outbreaks of floor-stomping dance moves and ululating voices. Top government officials came up to the mountaintop church from the village below and the entire Diocese head office came from town – forming a caravan that our landcruiser joined early in the morning.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The whole installation was efficient and ran for a brief three hours. Time was a concern because the Bishop and his entourage were pressing on via backroads to make it to Pommern for another installation the next day. The celebrations wrapped up shortly after lunch and people began piling into their cars. While most of the vehicles were heading to the next destination, my colleague and I (both Americans by the way), were heading back to town – along with a half-dozen older women we were to drop off in villages along the way. We passed the junction where the other vehicles turned off; we could see the dust their tires kicked up as we continued on our way.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">My colleague was driving… carefully navigating blind turns with a wall of dirt on the right and a steep drop off on the left, giving ‘informational beeps’ as we’d approached each bend.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The road was rutted and pockmarked with puddles… The grader hadn’t been through yet and wouldn’t be for some time. ‘Driving’ in this case meant choosing when to ride ridges and when to hew close to an edge. </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">In one particularly challenging section the wise choice seemed to be to stick to the edge.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">And that’s when it happened: </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Tire met air and our whole vehicle began a sickening slide to the left. </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The thick underbrush masked a place where water from a culvert had eroded away the road.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">While the angle was precarious, the vehicle bottomed out pretty quickly. We didn’t slide entirely off the road or (God forbid) tumble into the valley below. My colleague turned the engine off and put the car in park. I helped our startled passengers climb up and out.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">With our friends heading off in a different direction and no cell service at this particular corner, we were stranded on a hillside… Utterly Alone.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Or so we thought.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">After several minutes had passed we heard sound from the hillside above us as a farmer, carrying a</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">jembe</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">or hoe, walked down to see what was going on. With a quiet sigh and expression of sympathy (‘</span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Pole sana’)</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">he dropped whatever else he was going to do that day; suddenly his purpose was to figure out a way to get us out.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">As he was assessing the scene, two young guys on a motorcycle came by and stopped in their tracks. One jumped off to assist with the analysis of our situation while the other raced off to get help. Soon a handful of other motorcycles appeared and shortly behind them a truck carrying the local government leader.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The men got together and tried all sorts of different methods to free the vehicle – a fascinating exercise in groupthink/trial-and-error problem solving in its own right.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Women who were with them on the motorcycles gathered around, conversed with, and comforted our startled passengers.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I tried to pitch in but realized I was likely more of a hindrance than a help in their efforts…</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The village chairman got a signal on his phone and called ahead to the village below to the guy he knew who owned a tractor... </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>“Yes, I know you have other things you intend to do,”</i> he said.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>“I also know that you will be bringing the tractor up the hill right now... Or else I'll be calling so and so, who will call so and so, who will then tell you to drive the tractor up the hill.” </i></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">There was a pause. </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“So you</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">are</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>coming? Good.”</i> </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I don’t recall if he added a cursory <i>“Thank you”</i> or not. Another life interrupted and redirected at the drop of a hat – or, in this case, the slip of a tire.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eaMyqsWGVXo/YA-cNG0ZC6I/AAAAAAAB6r8/dh-w3Emg67QrQOmuZW35wwy2NL1uOYZZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_20180714_151730.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eaMyqsWGVXo/YA-cNG0ZC6I/AAAAAAAB6r8/dh-w3Emg67QrQOmuZW35wwy2NL1uOYZZgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/IMG_20180714_151730.jpg" title="Trial and Error, July 2018" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">While the cajoling on the phone was going on, the crowd around the car had divided into a few different crews. Those with hoes and shovels dug into the roadbed to help the vehicle settle back into the road, those with axes cut down a couple trees and used them as levers, those with only their bodies used their strength… together they were able to lift and shove the landcruiser back onto the road. </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Just as they finished and cheered, the tractor came chugging around the corner.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>‘Thank you-s</i>’ and <i>‘Drive Carefully-s’</i> were exchanged as people began to go their own ways.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Our vehicle was none-the-worse for the ordeal. Our passengers hopped back in and continued chatting among themselves. </span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">With nerves understandably shot, my colleague opted for the passenger seat as I took the wheel – full of gratitude for the many who immediately dropped what they were doing on the spot and took a different way that day.</span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Originally delivered as part of a Message at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, Saint Paul, MN on 24 Jan 2021.</i></span></span></div><div><p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-56055451406055828922021-01-01T09:29:00.482-06:002021-01-17T07:13:34.640-06:00Adiaphora<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xO8HmYh2lT0/X-85bB-a4WI/AAAAAAAB6DE/Zsc3Zto3FDgWvdEdZ5Tm9vvX8iWoFdXNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0518.JPG"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xO8HmYh2lT0/X-85bB-a4WI/AAAAAAAB6DE/Zsc3Zto3FDgWvdEdZ5Tm9vvX8iWoFdXNQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/IMG_0518.JPG" title="Stacked Logs at the Cabin -Jan 2021" width="640" /></a></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"We need to pack 'go-bags' and put them in the car: a change of clothes and toiletries for each of us; a couple toys and books for H; diapers & formula for Z; some food for the dogs... Just in case things get weird." </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wallets with IDs would need to be kept handy and phones would need to be charged as well.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Crises and triaging the unimaginable have a way of stripping things down to their most basic ... their most essential. In retrospect, 2020 served a similar purpose for me and my world.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”</i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>-Søren Kierkegaard</i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was Friday, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CA1jfSwB3GDgQgaikxdTYhBmqtxxADs5pRFF-A0/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">May 30th</a>, seventy-eight days into the pandemic and our second night under curfew as civil unrest gripped the Twin Cities following the killing of George Floyd that Monday. While the likelihood of violence spreading through our Highland Park neighborhood seemed nominal, those were unprecedented days in the middle of an unprecedented year. Several miles to the West, Lake Street in Minneapolis was aflame. A couple miles straight North of us, 'our' Target on University Ave was one of the first places that violence occurred in Saint Paul. Gas stations nearby were torched systematically and shops on Grand Avenue were hit by opportunistic looting. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Terms like Boogaloo and Proud Boys became part of my vocabulary and t<span style="font-family: inherit;">he neighborhood Facebook group was buzzing all night and all day, not with tales of the notoriously horrible service at our local DQ but with reports of cars with their license plates removed and suspected of prowling our streets and marking local businesses to ‘visit’ later: “Black Ford SUV. No plates. 3 passengers. Heading South on Cleveland. Phoned it in to police.” I pulled my vacationing neighbor's propane tank into our garage so it couldn't be seen from the street and made sure that our garden hose was easily accessible should trouble come to our little corner. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Again unlikely, but so too was the sealing off of the Ford, Marshall, and other bridges across the Mississippi that link </span>Minneapolis and Saint Paul. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i>If</i> the unthinkable occurred we would be prepared. <i>If</i> push came to shove, we could get out with what matters. The rest? The house, the yard, the stuff... unessential... it could all go. We would have each other and that would be enough. We would find a way. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">As the calendar turns, we find ourselves in a place of quiet stability. While we've experienced our own set of losses and setbacks, we recognize the privilege of that position.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Whatever the future holds, we begin with each other. And for that I give thanks.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i>"The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever"</i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i>-Søren Kierkegaard</i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Professionally, I entered 2020 full of confidence and pride. There was the conference in Nashville and membership in a badass cohort of leaders who were selected to 'lead, create, and innovate the church into a vibrant future.' There was the strategic plan and clear path forward for the BKB partnership. There was the ballsy vision of a career trajectory and belief that I'd simply tap dance from one stage to the next.</p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">And then there was the pandemic and a lot of that was stripped away. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">The fundamentals are still there; the desire for growth, the goals for the organization, and my own professional aspirations - all of these remain. The others, however... the hubris and clear-eyed certainty... the vocational ballsiness and clerical badassery... these were wiped away and revealed to be what they were all along: <i>adiaphora... </i>postures and positions and actions <i>not regarded as essential to faith</i>. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">Inessential, these things can, in fact, get in the way and I've spent the latter part of 2020 piling them up and putting them away. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">And so, I enter 2021 with a clear heart -if not clear eyes- and aspirations that fly lower to the ground through a landscape of certain uncertainty... simply living out my calling to be who I am, where I am, with the people I'm with, forever as long as I'm with them. And for that, too, I give thanks. </p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-62188563027265064242020-12-15T12:12:00.399-06:002020-12-22T21:22:05.276-06:00An Extended Hiatus (and Life Fully Lived)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnZ1PMECogs/X9pVJcOczZI/AAAAAAAB5ZI/DahEe2393PAnfIptokr5lGMr293Y6GvbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2046/0041_PeterandJenny_6-28-15-COLLAGE.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="Living the Dream (2015-2020)" border="0" data-original-height="2046" data-original-width="2046" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dnZ1PMECogs/X9pVJcOczZI/AAAAAAAB5ZI/DahEe2393PAnfIptokr5lGMr293Y6GvbQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/0041_PeterandJenny_6-28-15-COLLAGE.jpg" title="Living the Dream (2015-2020)" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Living the Dream (2015-2020)</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>It has been 5 1/2 years (2114 days if you want to be precise) since my <a href="https://newspecs.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-five-stages-of-banking.html" target="_blank">last realtime posting</a> here. If you were following along and have been concerned that perhaps I've been stuck in a bank line most of that time, fear not - my extended hiatus comes not from a sentence to bureaucratic purgatory but from a life fully lived. </div><div><br /></div><div>If/as time allows, I'll go back and fill in the record with selected postings. In the meantime, here's a brief sketch of what I've been up to...</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">+++</div><div><br /></div><div>On the <b>professional</b> front, I'm now completing the seventh year of <a href="https://newspecs.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-new-call.html" target="_blank">my call</a> as Director of <a href="https://spas-elca.org/mission/global-mission/tanzania/" target="_blank">Bega Kwa Bega</a> with the ELCA's Saint Paul Area Synod. Since March 2015, I've logged 13 trips to Iringa and added some 234,000 miles to my frequent flier accounts. Along the way I've developed some pro-tips and habits that make the long-haul journey a downright pleasant experience. </div><div><br /></div><div>In terms of time away in Tanzania, by my estimation it comes to a 64 weeks - or a year and some change. When I first started, the pattern of service involved three-months in Tanzania followed by three-months in Minnesota. It was an open question as to which place would be 'home.' Over time that one worked itself out... I got married and things changed; we had kids, and things changed again (more on those below) and Saint Paul became 'home' home. In recent pre-pandemic years, I've been averaging three trips per year with an average duration of anywhere from 2-8 weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although I've been away from the blog, I haven't been away from my keyboard. Writing continues to be an important part of who I am and what I am about, including composing some 260 newsletters with stories from the partnership (many of which are <a href="https://spas-elca.org/category/blog/bega-kwa-bega/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">archived here</a>) and crafting several dozen sermons for congregations across Minnesota and Tanzania. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">+++</div><div><br /></div><div>While I've been fortunate to have work that has kept my weeks and days meaningfully full, it is my <b>personal </b>life that has seen the most change. I returned from Tanzania on March 13 and jumped straight into wedding preparation mode. On June 28, 2015 the decade-and-a-half-long question mark of our maybe-more-than-friends relationship was formally resolved before God and the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>Since then, we've been busy building -together- a life that we love. </div><div><br /></div><div>It has included a honeymoon in Zanzibar and a feast with our friends in a Maasai village. Our first anniversary was spent at the base of the world's tallest building in Dubai and came in the middle of a summer that was bookended with some of our favorite places: Malaysia and the tropics of SE Asia and the Canadian wilderness. We've circled through Utah, road tripped out to Montana, gone to Orlando once and been out to Southern California twice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere in there, we bought a 1923 bungalow and have also learned to settle down.</div><div><br /></div><div>Two became three with the birth of H in August 2017 and then three became 4 when Z arrived in April 2020. With Kasper and Daisy (his and hers pups if there ever were any) faithfully beside us, our pack/household now numbers six. Although the realities of kiddo-hood (and pandemics) make it tough, we are eager to show our girls the wider world. In the mean time, we are digging into the simple joys of life at home - playing games, baking bread, and giving thanks for a plot of earth and the chance to tend to it.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">+++</div><div><br /></div><div>While we've suffered our fair share of losses and heartbreaks along the way, we are, I'd say, living the dream -or, at least, <i>a</i> dream that we've dreamed up with each other. </div><div><br /></div><div>Honestly, I don't know that one-handed typing with a sleeping infant on my lap in a recliner in a little house in the city was part of my wildest imagination as a solo traveler in the spring of 2015... And yet, here we are and here we go... </div><div><br /></div><div>And I, for one, couldn't be more grateful.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-16097660127093764622015-03-03T08:16:00.000-06:002015-03-03T09:15:09.330-06:00The Five Stages of Banking<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-STFVVofcfNQ/VPW4Q2UelOI/AAAAAAAARNk/BWAe7qJXOa8/s1600/NBC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-STFVVofcfNQ/VPW4Q2UelOI/AAAAAAAARNk/BWAe7qJXOa8/s1600/NBC.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Daily Dose of Banking - Aug 2014</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sickly glow of fluorescent tubes reflects off the scuffed tiles of the floor. Kwaya music blasts at full volume from a television in the corner, its screen filled with animated gestures and exaggerated vocals. The line inches forward and an older lady saunters over from the seat she's been occupying to reclaim her place in the line that she had somehow staked out earlier. Everyone somehow knows this and so we shuffle appropriately. One step forward, two steps back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Neither 'exotic' nor 'breathtaking,' this is the daily grind . . . the mundane and the real. This is the Tanzania I'm growing to know and, somehow, to love. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the bank line and, leaning heavily on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model">Kübler-Ross</a>, this is how I move through it — sometimes in order and sometimes all at once:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>STAGE 1 [Denial] </b>You wake up early or choose an odd hour on an idle Tuesday to head to the bank. You are savvy enough to know that the lunch hour and end of the month are all "no-go" zones. You approach the bank. The line isn't out the door! "I'll get to go straight to the front and be out of here lickety-split!" you think. Oh how wrong you are. . .</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>STAGE 2 [Anger] </b>"For the love of all that is holy and good how can a line double back on itself this many times?" The inner rant runs wild. "How few staff can they have? Did anybody else notice how that guy cut the line? Why can't they fill out their forms <i>before</i> getting in line and blocking a teller? Can s/he count money any slower? Of course the internet is down! Of course! Where's a manager? Who can I tell off? I have places to go and things to do! I'm <i>NEVER </i>coming here again." </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>STAGE 3 [Bargaining] </b>Eyes scan the room looking for options, different doors to try or strategies to pursue. The inner monologue switches its tone. "If I'm polite perhaps they'll give me a front of the line pass next time. If I smile or am courteous they'll look upon me with favor. If I play dumb and 'accidentally' stand in the fast lane they won't turn me away, will they?"</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>STAGE 4 [Depression]</b> With a thousand yard stare you resign to spend the rest of the day, if not eternity, in that line. Plans for the rest of the day/week/month/year are all dashed. The man in the threadbare suit ahead of you and the woman with the extravagantly sculpted hair behind you are the last people who will ever see you alive. You always knew bureaucracy would get you in the end.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>STAGE 5 [Acceptance]</b> From suffering to enlightenment, the churning of the mind comes to an end as the daily dose of banking becomes a daily moment of zen. You are who you are where you are with the people you are with in line at the bank. Nothing more and nothing less. Yes, you have things to tend to but so does the farmer in front of you and the business woman behind you. And that guy who cut the line? Maybe he came into town by bus and is pulling money out of his account to pay for a wedding, a funeral, or to buy seeds to plant maize. In time, its own time, the bank line will move. You will reach the teller and complete your transaction. All in good time. . . All in good time.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-58341691802506429832015-02-28T11:12:00.001-06:002015-02-28T11:12:36.809-06:00Walking Mindfully<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7uMI_sDKr2M/VPH11hHK9lI/AAAAAAAARNM/K40r9IzkRIU/s1600/Walk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7uMI_sDKr2M/VPH11hHK9lI/AAAAAAAARNM/K40r9IzkRIU/s1600/Walk.jpg" height="640" width="356" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Morning Walk in Gangilonga, Iringa - Feb 2015</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-Thich Nhat Hahn, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-Mindfulness-Introduction-Meditation/dp/0807012394" target="_blank">The Miracle of Mindfulness</a></span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-82320790448534128582015-01-14T10:18:00.000-06:002015-02-14T10:40:00.071-06:00Mwaka wa Kwanza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">Originally Posted on <i><a href="http://www.spas-elca.org/kusema/unknowing-aliveness" target="_blank">Kusema: To Speak, To Talk, To Tell</a></i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PTp-kpbc6FM/VN90tK4tLdI/AAAAAAAARME/iMHcFvWmLEU/s1600/Jan15option1-450x254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PTp-kpbc6FM/VN90tK4tLdI/AAAAAAAARME/iMHcFvWmLEU/s1600/Jan15option1-450x254.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Msigwa & Me - Aug 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today marks my one year anniversary as Kiongozi wa Bega Kwa Bega (Director of Bega Kwa Bega). No longer mpya (new), I cross the threshold into my second year of service grateful for all that the last twelve months have contained and optimistic about what lies ahead.<br /><br />If there was a theme to 'Year 1' it would be listening. Through feedback sessions with BKB cluster groups and affiliated organizations, back-to-back-to-back committee meetings, and quiet conversations over cups of chai, I've been able to catch glimpses of the heart and soul of this relationship and witnessed the unmistakable presence of the Spirit that animates it all.<br /><br />It has also been a year of navigating the complex network of relationships that characterizes this cross-cultural and cross-continental partnership, learning about our shared history, and beginning to discern where we may be headed in the future.<br /><br />. . . For now I want to end a word of thanks. To all who have patiently and faithfully accompanied me during this year of introduction - Bishops’ offices, committee members, cluster leaders, coordinators, and the hundreds of individuals I've met - please accept my heartfelt gratitude.<br /><br />Asante sana na Mungu awabariki. . .</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-44381013962445530032015-01-07T10:08:00.000-06:002015-02-14T10:14:40.757-06:00Unknowing Aliveness<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Originally Posted on <i><a href="http://www.spas-elca.org/kusema/unknowing-aliveness" target="_blank">Kusema: To Speak, To Talk, To Tell</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lFs5l0joRbw/VN9yk_BCk1I/AAAAAAAARL4/1_nIZAlRoaE/s1600/Wheels%2BUp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lFs5l0joRbw/VN9yk_BCk1I/AAAAAAAARL4/1_nIZAlRoaE/s1600/Wheels%2BUp.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flying Over Iringa - April 2014</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Later this week I leave for two months in Iringa. While there are certain set pieces already in place (things like travel schedules, a wish list of tasks to accomplish, and a handful of big events to attend), what I find most striking is how much I don't know about what is ahead of me.<br /><br />I don't know who will come knocking on the door of our apartment on any given day or who I will bump into on the path behind the park on my way to the main market. I don't know where I'll be called to preach or the kinds of insight I'll be asked to share with our guests from Saint Paul as they make sense of what they are seeing and hearing. I don't know what lessons our companions have to teach me this time around - be it from my colleague, Pastor Msigwa, or the students we will meet while visiting secondary schools in February.<br /><br />In short, the more I travel. . . The more I go. . . The more I realize I don't know.<br /><br />And in that state of admitted unknowing, I'm finding there is a certain degree of aliveness. A poem by Anne Hillman that <a href="http://onbeing.org/blog/five-questions-for-crossing-the-threshold/7167" target="_blank">I recently came across</a> conveys this sentiment far more succinctly than I. It is offered here for your consideration:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><u>We look with uncertainty</u><br />by Anne Hillman<br /><br /><em>We look with uncertainty<br />beyond the old choices for<br />clear-cut answers<br />to a softer, more permeable aliveness<br />which is every moment<br />at the brink of death;<br />for something new is being born in us<br />if we but let it.<br />We stand at a new doorway,<br />awaiting that which comes...<br />daring to be human creatures,<br />vulnerable to the beauty of existence.<br />Learning to love.</em></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-8674885146617244972014-12-17T09:49:00.000-06:002015-02-14T09:58:08.635-06:00Hyggeligt<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W7KJeNrt6nA/VN9uGArKyzI/AAAAAAAARLg/aKaxbItQwOA/s1600/Midtfyn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W7KJeNrt6nA/VN9uGArKyzI/AAAAAAAARLg/aKaxbItQwOA/s1600/Midtfyn.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">A Late Summer Eve, Midtfyn - Sept 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Danish notion of <i>hygge</i> has gotten <a href="http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/how-hygge-can-help-you-get-through-winter" target="_blank">a lot of press</a> this Fall/Winter — at least in the social network circles that I run in. Pronounced something like<i> ‘HYU-gah’ </i>it translates roughly into a feeling of warmth/coziness/togetherness/contentment. </span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Considering myself half-a-step ahead of the pop-culture curve on this one, I’m glad to report that it was <i>hygge</i> was something I ran into time and time again during my visit to Denmark:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was a garden party with neighbors, barbecue, laughter, fresh vegetables, blooming flowers, and hot air balloons floating overhead.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was after-dinner coffee, fresh-baked desserts, and stories about those who came before us.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was lunch in a greenhouse with a beekeeper overlooking farm fields.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was a cafe in a busy public square and a candlelit apartment that evening, welcomed by strangers turned friends.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was, and is, a way of life and a state of being — the closest comparison I’ve experienced is the <i>starehe </i>vibe of the Swahili coast and the the quasi-<i>taoist</i> sensibilities I’ve acquired along the way in Asia.<br />
<br />
It was, and is, something that I aspire to find in my day to day life - another piece of my heritage to reclaim.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-19914280418034013222014-10-17T10:11:00.000-05:002015-02-14T09:57:42.849-06:00She Said Yes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qPS1lXN5I/VN9wTR-KtkI/AAAAAAAARLs/T_QKjSpKltI/s1600/Yes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qPS1lXN5I/VN9wTR-KtkI/AAAAAAAARLs/T_QKjSpKltI/s1600/Yes.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Enough Said - Oct 17, 2014<br /></i></td></tr>
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While there's a lot more to the story, and many more eloquent ways to phrase it, for now let the sage wisdom of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpOULjyy-n8" target="_blank">REO Speedwagon</a> suffice:</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I can't fight this feeling any longer</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>What started out as friendship, has grown stronger</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I only wish I had the strength to let it show</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I tell myself that I can't hold out forever</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I said there is no reason for my fear</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Cause I feel so secure when we're together</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You give my life direction</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You make everything so clear</i></span></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And even as I wander</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm keeping you in sight</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You're a candle in the window</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On a cold, dark winter's night</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might</span></div>
</span></i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I can't fight this feeling anymore</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've forgotten what I started fighting for . . .</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br /></div>
</span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-86497990563523256392014-09-28T09:54:00.000-05:002015-02-14T08:56:15.225-06:00Disruption - One Year Later<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F19v10YbL3o/VN9fl5i1EbI/AAAAAAAARK8/DoWFoo4X4uw/s1600/EagleStreetPlaza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F19v10YbL3o/VN9fl5i1EbI/AAAAAAAARK8/DoWFoo4X4uw/s1600/EagleStreetPlaza.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Eagle Street Plaza, Saint Paul - Sept 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was on an Air Asia flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu a year ago today. I remember listening to <a href="https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/unedited-nadia-bolz-weber-with-krista-tippett" target="_blank">Krista Tippet’s interview with Nadia Bolz-Webber</a> as I was heading home across the South China Sea. One section in particular, on the theme of death and resurrection, gave me pause. </span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Little did I know that I’d land smack-dab in the middle of my own impolite disruption an hour and a half later. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">About of the third of the way into the interview, Nadia says,</span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">. . . <i>I feel like the Christian life is a life of continual death and resurrection. Also, I think some sectors of Christianity think, well, you're saved and then you're good, right? And then you just lead a really nice life and you're a good person and you're redeemed and you sort of climbed this spiritual ladder so that you're close to God. And that's just not been my experience.</i></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">My experience is of that disruption, over and over again, of going along and tripping upon something that I think I know or that I think I'm certain about, and realizing I'm wrong. Or maybe fighting to think I'm right about something over and over and over again until I experience what I call the sort of divine heart transplant. You know, it's like God reaches in and, you know, the prophets speak of this. It's not a polite experience, you know? </span></i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Its </i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><i>always</i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i> death and resurrection . . . something has to die so that something new can live. Its spiritual physics.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<div style="min-height: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whether you call it ‘the chop’ or the day when I was ‘Final-ed,’ <a href="http://newspecs.blogspot.com/2014/01/belonging-but-not.html" target="_blank">September 28, 2013</a> was a day of disruption. It marked the end (or the beginning of the end) of a job that I found incredibly meaningful, of frequent feasts and dive trips with fast friends, of a relationship that caused me to grow in ways I never knew possible. Everything I thought I knew about me and about my future was wrong. Near-certain dreams of calling Southeast Asia home for decades were dashed. It was a day of death.</span></span><br />
<div style="min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As <a href="http://newspecs.blogspot.com/2013/12/seeking-shalom-island-style.html" target="_blank">beautifully-brutal and soul-searingly-holy</a> as the following months were, the intervening year been one of resurrection. From that death, something new now lives. I’ve returned to my roots in the Upper Midwest, Northern Europe, and even East Africa, marked and utterly changed by my sojourn in Southeast Asia and with a renewed sense of self. I’ve landed in a position that gives me an even greater ability to act, linking communities and transforming lives across continents. </span></span><br />
<div style="min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What’s more, I’ve reconnected with WW — my constant. After more than a decade of friendship and on-again-off-again-interest, we are <i>finally</i> in sync. Solo journeys have become shared ventures across the frozen tundra of Saint Paul in January, the North Shore in June, and Tanzania in August. . . Two moving towards one.</span></span><br />
<div style="min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Its always death and resurrection. Always. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, now, I couldn’t be more grateful.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-12121727399192354872014-09-17T08:42:00.000-05:002015-02-21T10:52:02.284-06:00Simple Things<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NcupQN02P40/VN9Py7yuinI/AAAAAAAARKs/U9cdxOfXqx4/s1600/FrodeLunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NcupQN02P40/VN9Py7yuinI/AAAAAAAARKs/U9cdxOfXqx4/s1600/FrodeLunch.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Lunch - Sept 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The meal was laid out before us: fresh bread, fresh vegetables, and fresh slices of cheese and meats. Served on a small table in a homemade greenhouse overlooking fields and beehives, lunch with Frøde was simple and satisfying.<br />
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One of the things that I’ve noticed and come to value most during this recent trip to Denmark is its ethos of straightforward simplicity. You see it in design where form elegantly matches function. You hear about it in policy choices were the costs of social goods (education, infrastructure, health care) are shouldered by all. You sense it in lifestyle choices, where work and life are balanced and equanimity is valued over ostentation. Through neighborhood volleyball games in the countryside and candlelit dinners on the outskirts of Copenhagen, the folks I’ve met seem to be living the good life — a simple life. <br />
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After being away from the United States for several years I have a hard time adjusting to the striving and the stressing and the hoarding and the unfettered drive to consume at all costs that characterizes the dominant culture that I come from. I take pride in the fact that the physical stuff of my life has been edited down to a dozen rubbermaid bins or so. I re-establish myself in Minnesota and get settled in 650 square feet along the Mississippi, I hope that I can somehow keep it so simple.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-1950636146105689832014-09-14T22:15:00.000-05:002015-01-29T21:30:19.758-06:00Balik Kampung<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaKLz8Rw5NBc4QkGI4h46TjOixszOSpncodfrQ-MJL0f96S3N2YYrn0zhzqP-4e6myqcyLTRIKoi_92x4rqlalCHjrKRBaenxn56SFdV74tWyB1kXnaPmbsyFlQTcr1z7K9_-RA/s1600/ph1020_20140908_14_19_11_Pro__highres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJaKLz8Rw5NBc4QkGI4h46TjOixszOSpncodfrQ-MJL0f96S3N2YYrn0zhzqP-4e6myqcyLTRIKoi_92x4rqlalCHjrKRBaenxn56SFdV74tWyB1kXnaPmbsyFlQTcr1z7K9_-RA/s1600/ph1020_20140908_14_19_11_Pro__highres.jpg" height="281" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Harritz Family Name at Kongenshus Memorial Park - Sept 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Balik Kampung </i>is a phrase that has hung with me since departing Malaysia nearly a year ago. In English the phrase means ‘return to village’ and is used to describe the mass exodus of people from the cities to their hometowns that occurs during every large holiday season. More broadly, it describes time with family and returning to one’s roots. <br />
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On my way back from Tanzania this September I <i>balik-</i>ed<i> kampung </i>with my brother. Stopping off in Amsterdam, I hopped a flight to Copenhagen where I met Tom for a ten day adventure across Denmark. As with any ‘return to village’ scenario, however, adventure in this case translated to good food, good conversation, and plenty of time spent with our extended Danish family.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We covered a lot of territory, from the rolling hills and fields of Ringe and <i>midtfyn </i>to the medieval town of Ribe and grenen, the tip of the Danish mainland where the Baltic and North seas collide. We ate delicious meals, a New Nordic take on smørrebrød at Almanak in Copenhagen, a homemade multi-course feast with family on a farm near Viborg, and the delicious simplicity of <i>snøbrød </i>baked over a campfire. Mostly, however, the trip was about conversations over cups of coffee, glasses of wine, and bottles of beer and the re-membering of family lineages and histories.<br />
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Time spent in Denmark with my brother was pure gift - for me and especially for him. When each of us four grandkids turned twelve my Grandma and Grandpa Harrits planned to take each of us to Denmark to meet relatives and learn about our heritage. For a variety of reasons, Tom opted not to take his trip then. Following my grandpa’s death this past Spring, however, he realized it was time. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so I went with him, across the country and back in time to Grønhøj and the windswept moors of Western Jutland where, in 1759, the Harritz family arrived to clear the fields of heather and plant the humble potato. Along the way we met a genealogist who studies family like ours, potato germans they are called, who produced records that trace the family name back to a small farm in central Germany. . . </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another village to return to on another trip perhaps.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-35848711236234411562014-08-30T03:06:00.000-05:002014-08-30T03:06:03.892-05:00Above All Nations<span style="font-size: x-small;">From a Sermon Delivered at Pommern Lutheran Church</span><div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Iringa, Tanzania 24 Aug 2014</span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-50o40U6caBg/VAGAdq8-hmI/AAAAAAAAQ1E/GyT2_htvj-A/s1600/AboveAllNations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-50o40U6caBg/VAGAdq8-hmI/AAAAAAAAQ1E/GyT2_htvj-A/s1600/AboveAllNations.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flying Over Tanzania - June 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is my second visit to Iringa this year as the Director of Bega Kwa Bega for the Saint Paul Area Synod. I have now been here for more than two months. In ten days or so I will be returning to America to continue the work of our partnership there. There journey will take me by plane from Iringa to Dar es Salaam and then on to Amsterdam and the American city of Chicago, where my parents live.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have learned to enjoy flying. This is good because my work involves traveling between America and Tanzania quite regularly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I especially love the flight from Iringa to Dar es Salaam. As the small plane takes off from Nduli it turns to the East. From the windows you can see the mountains that surround Iringa, the plains near Isimani, and -on a clear day- where the land falls away into the Rift Valley on the way to Mtera. The flight follows the course of the highway. You look down on Ilula and can see where the road it Image goes off on the right. You see the rushing river near Ruaha Mbuyuni, the way the mountains give way to the flat lands of Mikumi, and then the sprawl of the buildings and roads that make up Dar es Salaam.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Closer to my home, I enjoy flying in to the airport at Chicago - <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=flying+into+chicago+at+night&es_sm=119&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=aoQBVIyCD-jiywOyooCIBw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1180&bih=802#q=flying+into+chicago+at+night&tbm=isch&imgdii=_" target="_blank">especially at night</a> when the lights of the city spread as far as the eye can see. There are so many lights that you can perfectly see the outline of the Great Lake Michigan - a dark shape surrounded by a sea of light.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These are truly beautiful sights. They make you feel like you are on top of the world. But they are nothing compared to the view that God has. . .</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?dc=3&utm_expid=13466113-10.DRY5Q0U2TpaXvRe49bTgCA.3&search=PSALM+33%3A13-22&version=NRSV&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2F" target="_blank">today’s Psalm</a>*, we read:</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From heaven the Lord looks down</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and sees all mankind;</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">from his dwelling place he watches</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> all who live on earth—</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">he who forms the hearts of all,</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> who considers everything they do.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God’s view takes in all of the word; it is not limited to a small window in an airplane. God’s sees mountains and rivers and cities like we do; but God also sees the heart and soul of all of God’s people. God sees <i>everything</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As God looks at the world, what does God see and what does God value?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As humans, we have divided the world into nations and states. We have drawn borders on maps and raised armies to defend them. We have elected presidents, served kings, and followed chiefs to build our own sense of security. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We clear fields, cut trees, and dig mines to extract resources. And then we build roads and train tracks and airports to trade them. We bargain with one another, we cheat one another, and we deal dishonestly with one another so that we can amass fortunes for ourselves - to buy ourselves a better future.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When we look down on the Earth from on high, we take pride in the ways that we have transformed the world. We value our leaders and our armies and our wealth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But, again, as God looks down on the Earth, what does God see and what does God value?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Certainly God sees our nations and our leaders and their armies. But do they fill God’s chest with a sense of pride? No! As the Psalmist writes, “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. . . [These things], despite [their] great strength cannot save.” Ultimately, they are nothing more than things humans use for or against one another. Ultimately, salvation belongs to the Lord.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Certainly God sees what we have done with God’s creation. God sees what we have made with the natural resources he has blessed us with. He sees our tall buildings and our roads and the small items that we make with our hands. He sees our economic systems and how some collect more than their fair share of the resources to grow in wealth and prestige. He sees how a small number of people reap most of the harvest, leaving the majority to go hungry. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He sees that we call this ‘success’ . . . and does it fill God’s chest with a sense of pride? No! <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?dc=3&utm_expid=13466113-10.DRY5Q0U2TpaXvRe49bTgCA.3&search=Amos+8%3A+4-8&version=NRSV&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fpassage%2F%3Fdc%3D3%26search%3DPSALM%2B33%253A13-22%26version%3DNRSV" target="_blank">The Prophet Amos</a> says this: “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, . . . “The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything [you] have done.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If God sees what we see but does not take pride in the things that we take pride, where else does God cast God’s vision and in what else might God value?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, Psalm 33 provides an answer. The Psalmist writes, “ . . . the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">God’s vision and God’s favor rests on the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and marginalized. God values and takes pride in the places and things that our human view overlooks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This is in line with what we read in Matthew 25. In a parable describing the judgment of nations Jesus says, “</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of [God’s] family,</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">you did it to me.’” You who for give food to the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, and visit those in prison . . . In God’s eyes, you are blessed and you will inherit God’s kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Son of God came to earth not as a mighty king with strong armies <i>or</i> as a wealthy trader with prestige and influence. Rather, He came as the son of a carpenter and spent his life and his ministry among those who had very little or were left behind by those who were deemed a ‘success’. He came so that all might have an abundant life. He died and was raised again to forgive all of us our sins - all of our sins- including the sin of overlooking what God sees and what God values. This is Good News. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My friends, my hope and my prayer for us gathered at Pommern this morning is this - that we may begin to see the world as God sees it and to value it the way that God does. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That we may be a people who find ourselves among the weak and the vulnerable. . . praising God by helping the poor, tending to the sick, feeding the hungry, and advocating for the voiceless.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May we be a people who joins the Psalmist in saying,</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We wait in hope for the Lord;</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> he is our help and our shield.</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In him our hearts rejoice,</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> for we trust in his holy name.</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> even as we put our hope in you.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Amen.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>*The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania creates its own lectionary to follow throughout the calendar year. You can find weekly themes and daily readings via their <a href="http://www.elct.org/calendar/index.html" target="_blank">online calendar.</a></i></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-41393916005986888092014-06-30T05:25:00.000-05:002014-08-29T09:50:06.122-05:00Marked<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fresh Ink - Dec 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of my last acts before leaving Malaysia in December was to get inked - a physical sign of my four year sojourn in Southeast Asia and the mark it has left on me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While the more direct line leads from my days as a youth worker in Apple Valley, through Theological and African Studies at Yale, and then straight to my current work in Tanzania. . . To skip over Malaysia would be to miss an incredibly rich formative period of my life. One that has shaped and, undoubtedly, will continue to shape my life in the years to come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So what does it mean?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Translated literally, 飘逸石 means (more or less) 'drifting stone' but has some poetic nuance to it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The first term 飘逸 means 'drifting' but has a 'gentle feel' to it. Some friends have described it as "effortlessly, gracefully flowing with the wind." Others have noticed an air of purposefulness as well and described the movements of the people in the '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccmava-4KnY" target="_blank">Fight in a Bamboo Forest</a>' sequence from the film <i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The final term, 石, means rock or stone. The character itself is meant to resemble cliff-face with a stone that has broken off from it at the base. The personal significance of the term for me is that the original meaning of my name, in Greek at least, means 'Rock.' Growing up, there was a plaque on my bedroom wall that read "Peter: Rock, 'Be Ye Steadfast'" and a verse from the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+40%3A8&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Prophet Isaiah</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Taken together, I chose them as a self-description of sorts and a reminder to be one who is solid, steadfast, and stable and yet also fluidly moves as the Wind and the Spirit blow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Also, for what it is worth, I did a lot of fact checking with several different Mandarin speakers to make sure I wasn't accidentally marking myself as 'Kung Pau Chicken' for all of eternity lah.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-90816403451251673812014-04-27T08:26:00.001-05:002014-04-27T08:30:24.964-05:00In Memoriam - Grandpa Arnie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Sunday Morning in Ilula - March 16, 2014</span></i><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Fair are the meadows,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Fair are the woodlands,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Robed in flowers of blooming spring;</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;</i></span></div>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.</span></i><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>-'Beautiful Savior,' v2</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was 8am on a Sunday morning. Apart from a scattered set of clouds that hung low across the mountains near Image, the sky was a brilliant shade of blue - as clear and as calm as I have ever seen it. The warm sun shone down upon the rows of corn and vegetables that were growing on the shambas (small farms) as far the eye could see. It was a beautiful day in East Africa - a beautiful day to be alive.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">At that same time, in a quiet room in Wisconsin -some 8200 miles away- my Grandpa, Arnold Christian Harrits (Arnie), <a href="http://www.churchandchapel.com/obituary/Arnold-Christian-Harrits/Waukesha-WI/1358338" target="_blank">was taking his final breaths</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I owe that view that morning, and much of my life, to him. In ways both subtle and direct he influenced me to become the man that I am - a globetrotting adventurer from hardworking and humble Danish-potato-planting stock. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">He gave me the gift of travel and encouragement to see the world. I remember slideshows of his and Grandma's travels - with the click-clicking of the carousel and the smell of dust burning off of the projector bulb and the feel of their worn green carpet on Charles Street scratching at my skin. I remember the stories told out of the side of his mouth - about the connection that was almost missed in Detroit and how they ran toward the jetway with tickets waving in the air and the rigamarole of flights to and from Australia and New Zealand. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mostly, though, I remember Denmark and family and connections. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I'm grateful for the way in which my world was expanded well beyond the tried and true confines of Southeastern Wisconsin and made smaller as I encountered lines of relationship that link me to others across continents and oceans. At the time I took this all for granted; in retrospect <i>I'm amazed at the audacity of a school bus driver and his christian educator wife who vowed to take their four grandchildren overseas not once but twice and what that action says about their values and beliefs.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Harrits men, I've been told, aren't known to be the most emotive people out there. More often than not, feelings and matters of ultimate concern are expressed not with our lips but with through the lives that we live. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In my grandfather's life and through his three sons, I've come to learn the importance of duty and service to one's community, one's country, and the common good of our global neighbors. I've come to appreciate the importance of education and of faith - of taking an active interest in the world in which one lives and conducting oneself in accordance with one's deepest beliefs. I've come to embrace their ethic of honest, hard work and stewardship: We are entitled to nothing in this world and, ultimately, nothing is ours; what we do have is but for a short time and we should use it with consideration for those who come after us.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mostly, however, I've come to know the importance of family and the bond of love (often unspoken) that crosses continents and knows no bounds. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">My grandfather was a man who, while in the Navy, wrote love letters across the Pacific Ocean to his beloved Shirley. My grandfather was a man who raised three sons, John and Jim and Jeff, to be entrepreneurs, engineers, and educators - men of honor and conviction, in their own right, and leaders in the communities they call home. My grandfather was a man who would bend over backwards to support his grandchildren Sarah, Robert, Tom and Me - logging hundreds of miles to see my plays in Minnesota and driving me through the night to Nebraska in order to catch up with a church youth group service trip.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">With a somewhat slanted smile and wry sense of humor to the end, he lived an outsized life of curiosity and compassion, that the humble way in which he carried himself rarely betrayed. I am grateful for him and, in the life that I lead, hope to carry his legacy forward in whatever way that I can. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Alle tak til Gud</i>. All thanks be to God.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-87655232924402489072014-04-01T09:11:00.001-05:002014-04-01T09:25:53.629-05:00Tools of the Trade<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t_H7OqZXLvU/UzrAjdAtg2I/AAAAAAAAQiQ/qHsBk5nV780/s1600/Tools+of+the+Trade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t_H7OqZXLvU/UzrAjdAtg2I/AAAAAAAAQiQ/qHsBk5nV780/s1600/Tools+of+the+Trade.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Desktop, Iringa Style - March 2013</td></tr>
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A couple of months ago I was interviewed for an article that will appear in my Undergrad Magazine (<a href="http://www.hamline.edu/"><span class="s1">Go Pipers</span></a>!). The piece is focused on alumni who are doing 'intriguing' work in religious fields. Apparently being a Program Coordinator/Missionary in Malaysia and, now, Tanzania fits the bill. </div>
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In addition to an extended phone interview the article also required a photo shoot. That experience, in and of itself, is another story. Prepping for the shoot, I received the following request in my email:</div>
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<i>We'd like to setup a portrait with you to convey your missionary work in Africa. We'd like to bring in props that help create an African setting. The backdrop may be a burnt orange or brownish color and we could have you seated on an African rug with basket weaving or blankets in the background. We'll be setting up lighting to create a dramatic light source with you holding a Bible or some item you use in your missionary work.</i><span class="s2"><i> </i></span></blockquote>
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It is a simple enough request but, for some reason, the last dozen or so words gave me pause.</div>
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I <i>get </i>the intended portrait that they desired to compose. It sounds like a classic - one that is easy to imagine. The catch is that it doesn't quite convey my reality.</div>
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<span class="s3">O</span>ne of the primary roles of being a Missionary in the 21st Century is connecting people of faith across continental and cultural borders. The Bible is already out there. It has been translated into a multiplicity of languages and is shared by indigenous and international Churches and leaders all around the world. The primary task now, at least for the roles that I've played, is stitching this diverse and global body of faith together - one image/story/message at a time. </div>
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To do <i>that</i>, my MacBook Air and Smartphone are the two tools that rarely leave my hands. Through them I don't necessarily bring something new. Rather, I share and communicate what is already there (aka the presence and mission of God). Altogether, this creates a very different kind of portrait.</div>
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As it turned out the photo shoot happened, more or less, on the fly. It also happened in the middle of a massive snowstorm. The rugs and weavings didn't quite come to fruition but there were some characteristically colorful African fabrics with intricate patterns that the magazine's printer is going to 'love' (or not). I was dressed in a Chinese-styled jacket from Malaysia with a beaded Maasai stole around my neck. With neither a Bible nor Technology, my hands were open - to interpretation.</div>
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And the final result? They remain to be read and seen. </div>
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I'll keep you posted if/when it goes to print.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32356576.post-6053907058033205372014-02-24T03:01:00.000-06:002014-08-23T04:22:50.162-05:00Good Soil<span style="font-size: x-small;">An Excerpt From a Sermon Delivered at Kihesa Lutheran Church</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Iringa, Tanzania 23 Feb 2014</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3hhiVw_U3fY/U_hXXNIbcWI/AAAAAAAAQz8/ox3aAJ9Pas0/s1600/SteepHillsidesMedium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3hhiVw_U3fY/U_hXXNIbcWI/AAAAAAAAQz8/ox3aAJ9Pas0/s1600/SteepHillsidesMedium.jpg" height="320" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Fertile Hillsides Near Lutangilo (Not-so-steep) - Feb 2014</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Text: <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+4%3A1-9&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Mark 4:1-9 - The Parable of the Sower</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The passage from the Gospel of Mark that we have read this morning is one of my favorites - the Parable of the Sower and the Seeds. What I love about this parable, and all parables in general, is the way in which Jesus uses common items (like seeds and soil) to teach us about huge and important things - like the Kingdom of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What I also like about this parable is the way in which this simple story is, in fact, very complex. Three different preachers will approach the same text and come up with three different sermons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One preacher might start with the character of the Sower - who is He and what can we learn from him? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Another preacher might start with the seeds - what are they and how can we learn from them? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A third preacher, <i>this</i> preacher, might start with the soil and ask questions like this: What is the church’s role in preparing the soil? <i>And</i>, what kind of soil are you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Before I proceed any further, however, I have a confession to make: I am not a farmer. I have never planted a field of corn or harvested a field of wheat. My profession is a pastor and a teacher, the tools I use are books and a computer - not a hoe or a <i>panga.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The same is true for many Americans. Last Sunday a group from Como Park Lutheran Church was visiting their companions in Itungi. After the worship service several of the women gathered around one of the women from Minnesota - an office worker. They stretched out her arm and felt the palm of her hand. “Your skin is so smooth!” they said, “You must not know how to farm!” they joked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, I wonder, how many of you know how to farm? How many of you grow your own corn or beans or vegetables in your yard or on your shamba? I suspect that many of you are experts and can teach me what you know - not only about farming but about the meaning of this parable. Some day I would like for you to teach me. . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>What kind of soil are you?</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">A danger of simple parables like this one of the Sower and the Seeds is that we can use it to affirm our own understanding of this world rather than to see it how God might see it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this case, there may be an easy temptation to divide the earth - and its people - into Good Soil and Bad Soil. The truth is far more complicated and, from the graceful perspective of God, there may be far more fertile soil than you or I can imagine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is a lesson that I learned again the other day as I travelled with Rev Msigwa and my colleagues to Lutangilo Secondary School when we went there to visit nearly 90 students who receive scholarships there through the Bega Kwa Bega partnership.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On our way to Lutangilo we first went through the valleys near Ipogolo and made our way up to Kilolo. At first the terrain was quite flat and there were many <i>shambas </i>and plots of land that were being farmed. This looked like rocky but good soil. As we kept on going higher into the mountains, however, the hills became steeper and the terrain seemed fall away from the side of the road. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There were large trees and tall grasses - “There’s no way someone could farm here,” I thought. “With such steep terrain, this is bad soil.” Imagine my surprise then, when we kept on going higher and higher and corn was being grown on incredibly steep mountainsides! I was shocked and amazed! My eyes could not see and my brain could not imagine that that was possible. Even on the sides of mountains, faithful and hardworking farmers have found good soil! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wonder if the same might be true when we try and apply this parable to our lives. I wonder if our limited, human sight might prevent us from seeing the good soil and opportunities for growth in those who around us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Just as I looked at those mountainsides and said, “there is no way anything can grow there,” I wonder if we do the same with others. . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Do we think, “That drunk or that lazy person . . . God could never do anything with them. God’s love could never grow in their bad heart?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wonder if we do the same with ourselves sometimes - Thinking that God’s word and God’s love could never take root in our own lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My friends, the Good News for us this morning is that God sees good soil and the opportunity for growth all around us. In the same way that farmers saw the possibility to grow crops on the steep slopes of mountains, so to God sees the opportunity to turn the burned and hardened places in our lives and our communities into soil that is good and fertile and fruitful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As you leave here today, I encourage you to see the world around you as God’s field. Join with one another in preparing the way of the Lord - smoothing over the rough places and making the crooked ways straight. At the same time, walk carefully and with humility - knowing that the grace of God can make even poorest soil healthy and blessed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For this Good News we can all give thanks. </span></div>
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