"Wouldn't It Be Neat If" as a Neighborhood Strategy

Wouldn't it be neat if ...
... the broken and wounded around me were healed;
... my friends who are estranged were reconciled;
... racism targets in my city were celebrated for their differences;
... racist hearts were opened;
... the poor of our communities emerged into stability;
... the outcast around us were included among us;
... the secretly low-esteemed undeniably saw their worth;
... the hopeless found faith?

Wouldn't it be neat if all these came true?
Neat, indeed. And tidy. Without spot or stain spoiling the neatness of my own illusion.
Wouldn't that be neat?
But what if ... ?

What if ...
... the broken and wounded are healed only by us being broken, too;
... reconciliation comes only after we bother to listen;
... differences are celebrated only if we throw the party;
... racist hearts are opened only when we stand with the "other";
... the poor emerge only if we fight for their jobs;
... "us" is created only by paying less homage to "me";
... worth is communicated only by loving without condition;
... invisible faith blossoms only after seeing faith at work?

What if all these are true?
What if "wouldn't it be neat if" was never neat?

Bad Water and Your Work

Perhaps you saw our demonstration of water filtration, able to take some of the dirtiest water and filter it 99.9999% pure from all biological contaminants. Perhaps you also were able to see how delivering water filtration kits to impoverished areas like western Kenya can have a huge impact on a family finally getting reliable, clean water to drink and wash with. And perhaps it's easier to see some of these basic principles when they are far removed from your personal situation.

Why are there water-borne diseases? These diseases are devastating, and able to wipe out entire populations - all from contaminants that are so small that we have to use kidney dialysis technology in order to affordably filter them out. Why do such things exist? Beyond the physical causes (improper sanitation, inadequate water treatment, mixed-use sources, etc.), what is the reason for these diseases?

Ultimately, because of the Curse. Because man rebelled against God, this Creation is fallen and in many ways, and conspires against the flourishing of man. Water-borne diseases are part of that conspiracy. So we can say that these diseases are collateral damage of an ongoing cosmic spiritual battle.

Therefore, we can also say that water filtration has a spiritual significance. The process is purely mechanical, fitting neatly within all the applicable rules of physics in a completely naturalistic process. But it is spiritually significant. Water filtration is part of the fight in the great spiritual battle of the Universe, fought on the battlefield of drinking water.

Believe it or don't believe it, it's at least easy to comprehend. This is not a hard concept to grasp. And so it's not hard to see how those who make water filters are part of the great battle (whether or not they know it). It's not hard to see how those who distribute water filters are part of the great battle. It's not hard to see how those who finance the distribution of water filters are part the great battle, even if it's a very thin slice of a much larger reality.

Now let's bring this home to your vocation and your work. Maybe it's not so obvious as water filtration, but using this as an example, can you look at your work through this lens? Can you see how your work could well be part of the great battle of the Universe? Is there some chaos that you bring order to? Is there some harm that you bring prevention or healing to? Is there some ignorance that you bring light to? Is there some brokenness that you bring wholeness to? Is there some rebellion that you contain? Is there some way you battle against the effects of the Fall?

Can you see how the work of your hands fits into the great cosmic spiritual battle played out in our Universe? If so, then you can see how your work is spiritually significant, even if it involves strictly physical processes. A mighty weapon in the spiritual battle can be as simple as a water filter.

Toxic Dresses

Our sewing team is close to shipping their second batch of hundreds of dresses for the female students of Benard’s Vision School in western Kenya. The dresses are intended to preserve their school uniforms. The students get only one uniform per year, and for many, it is their only change of clothes. You can imagine how difficult it is to keep one uniform in good shape for active kids when it is worn every day for a year.

These sew-ers have had fun together doing great work making colorful, culturally appropriate dresses. The first batch of dresses brought enormous smiles to our students' faces, and the gratitude of those who run the schools. They have my personal gratitude as they touch the lives of many students I've met.

This may be the last time we send dresses. Why would that be? If it's has been such a positive experience for students and sew-ers, why would we not do it again? Because if we keep doing this, eventually we will cause more harm than good.

There is quite a good number of books that explore these concepts, the most popular being When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity. They clearly explain how not all forms of “help” actually do good for the ones we intend to help. Sadly, many of the things we’re accustomed to doing can actually do great, systemic harm.

The first danger is dependency, which eventually leads to entitlement. By constantly giving material goods, especially apart from any kind of reciprocal relationship, we can create a kind of dependency similar to an addiction. The dependent ones become less able to do the very things they should be doing to help themselves, because it is continually done for them. Eventually, a sense of entitlement takes over, with a demandingness put on the givers.

Another danger is identity. By giving too many material goods too often, we can communicate to someone that they are less than, incapable, beneath the norm, or as one impoverished soul once said, “like the garbage of society that no one wants.” Furthermore, we mess up our own identities, by thinking that having material goods to share means we are not impoverished in any way, and that by giving to someone “in need,” we are their saviors.

On a more practical level, making dresses for Kenyan students can take away jobs from Kenyan dressmakers. Most of the clothes that get donated and shipped overseas are wreaking havoc on the local clothesmaking businesses. We have checked with the leaders in Kenya to make sure we have not been doing that, but sooner or later, we would be if we continue.

So what do we do now? We still want to help! Using clothes as an example, a better way for us to help is to buy sewing machines for Kenyan women to make clothes with, to help them be entrepreneurs. Maybe we donate the money to buy the cloth, and then pay the dressmakers to make dresses, so that they make a profit and get a business started. That’s just one example.

The one thing that brings people out of poverty is work. Not charity, not free clothing, not even free food. Work, jobs, business, entrepreneurship. Historically, it’s the only thing that has ever brought a community out of poverty. We can do better than making dresses, as good as making dresses has been.

Helping those in need is not at all about “doing something” so that we feel good about ourselves for having done something. It’s about submitting ourselves to the needs of others for their good.

In the Year 54 AW

Last week in Chicago, I was sitting at lunch next to a man who's been a pastor almost as long as I've been alive. He was telling the story of his upbringing and his father's business near Springfield, MO. As he was telling his story, he casually used a phrase that was perhaps more insightful than he intended. His father was a shopowner of a small mom-and-pop operation, selling all kinds of household goods. My soft-spoken lunch companion explained, "That was in the days before Walmart."

He didn't mean anything negative against Walmart, and neither do I with this article. He was just explaining the environment of his dad's business. For better or worse, the introduction of stores like Walmart changed that environment drastically. That was back then in the days before Walmart. We are now in the days after Walmart.

Not to pick on Walmart in particular, but he had identified a turning point in our society's history. We could call it a number of things and debate about the exact time and place, and we could use a different example other than Walmart. But using Walmart as our example, we can divide our history into "BW" ("before Walmart") and "AW" ("after Walmart"). His father's shop was active in business, for example, in the year 20 BW. I was born in the year 2 AW. I graduated high school in the year 17 AW. We're now in the year 54 AW.

Back in the BW days, mom-and-pop stores were more the norm. You knew the shopowners, and they knew you. There was not another shop quite like this one anywhere else, and it was your favorite shop of its kind. When you bought your goods, it was always the same clerk, and you know the names of everyone in that clerk's family. Sure, there were Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Wards, too, but they were not necessarily the default stores to go to, and they were often too long of a drive away to just get a toaster.

Now, in the AW days, mom-and-pop stores are more the exception than the norm. Our default is to go to national chain stores, which all look alike and you're checked out by a different clerk almost every time. No one knows your name (or if they do, it's a sign you shop too much!). Depersonalized, probably somewhat cheaper, more selections, and transactional instead of relational.

It's not just our stores - this is more and more our whole society. Education, business, shopping, sports, even church. Transactional instead of relational. We don't go to the store to buy something from someone ... we just go to the store to buy something. Period.

I don't harken for "the good ol' days." I don't want to turn back the clock. But I first just note the sociological significance of "BW" and "AW." Our societal history is bifurcated by institutionalization becoming the norm in every corner of our lives. Second, I note the onus this puts on us to keep life relational. For things to be relational, we must be more intentional.

When I shop, for example, as much as my introverted nature wants to use the automated checkout, I always find a real live clerk, even if I have to wait longer. I try to pick a clerk I've seen before, and I always try to say something to them that has nothing to do with me getting the stuff that I want to buy. I try to favor the mom-and-pop stores, restaurants, and coffeeshops, although I'm not militant about this at all.

I want to remember that people have work and that's important to them. They don't exist for me to get more stuff. They live and breathe and have families. They have joys and stresses. They have bills to pay. Often, they are working during my free time ... which means they can't go out for dinner or go to the movies during the typical times. They deal with ungrateful customers every day. They are criticized for things that aren't even their fault. They are clerks, managers, servers, number crunchers, students, experts about tools or paint or nutrition or health, parents, children, married, single, and most importantly, people who bear the image of God. They have honorable work to do. I can treat them transactionally or relationally. It's my choice.

For those who work for a national chain, I have nothing against you, you're doing nothing wrong, and I'll see you at your work often enough, too. You are not an institution no matter where you work. And you can make your domain more relational than transactional, too. In fact, we need you to.

We live in the "AW" period of history. It will never be "BW" again. How shall we then live?

How to respond?

Yet another one. Perhaps one of the most complex ones, at that. A mass shooting that involves religio-political rhetoric and the LGBTQ community - guns, religion, politics, and sexual orientation. The issues are so turned into each other that the tired, knee-jerk, simplistic rhetoric we're accustomed to now morphs old friends into foes and forges old foes into collaborators. The traditional slogans are exposed as hollow because they suddenly become self-defeating. Politicians didn't know what to say without angering half of their base. The game changed. No longer can you be pro-this without now being pro-that ... but you used to be anti-that.

So how should we respond as followers of Christ? Which axis of the four do we navigate to find our position?

A follower of Christ follows by doing as Christ would do. So our primary axis must be the one he would choose. We can have a secondary axis to defend respectfully, but the primary, controlling axis should be what he would choose. That's what it means to follow him.

I think it's clear he would not choose guns or politics as the primary axis. It's a pretty good argument, too, that sexual orientation would not be his primary one, based on how grace-filled he was when dealing with people whose sexual practices did not match his teachings. So, would he choose religion as his primary axis? In his Jewish context, they were surrounded by, ruled by, and subjected to pagan religion (polytheism and imperial worship, most dominantly). But we don't see Jesus picking fights about religion (except in-house debates among the Jews). So, that doesn't seem to be his primary axis, either.

Where does that leave his followers in the wake of Orlando's tragedy?

The primary things Jesus cared about were the image of God (imago Dei) that gives us value, the mission of God (missio Dei) that drove his purpose, and the greater story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. He was never not about these things, because all these things lead to his Father's glorification.

Things as horrible as what happened in Orlando happened in and around him, too. And more importantly, they happened to him. And yet, he never hated. He never feared. He never deterred from his path, and in fact, his path took him directly into his own massacre - a massacre filled with weapons (whips, not guns), religion (false charges of blasphemy), politics (Pilate as representative of Rome), and bigotry. The Cross event was worse than Orlando's events, as horrible as they were, because of the weight he bore. And just as it was about to reach its worst, he cried out for his Father to forgive them, because they really didn't understand the significance of what they were doing. That's his axis.

Our primary axis must be that of the crucified and risen Christ. Everyone, which means people on both ends of each axis, the victims, their friends and families, even the shooter's family ... even the shooter ... is someone Jesus endured the Cross for - because of the imago Dei in them and because of the missio Dei given to him. He endured this in order to give us the story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.

When our reactions to these events are controlled by this axis, we continue to tell that same story.

Personality Pollution

National Geographic reported last week that 80% of people living in the US cannot see the Milky Way galaxy at night. Because of light pollution (lights shining brightly enough at night to prevent us from seeing the night sky well), 80% of our population cannot see a structure of over 200 billion stars spanning 120,00 light years across. It's not that you can't see it in 80% of our geography, but where the population concentrates, so does light pollution, hiding 200 billion stars from nearly all of us.

Lamenting light pollution is not my purpose. Rather, I want to posit the question of what this is doing to our personalities.

Depending on when and where you grew up, you may have been able to enjoy laying on your front lawn or on the hood of a car, staring up at the night sky, and seeing a dark sky filled with stars. Which one is the North Star again? Oh, there it is! There's the Big Dipper, and that one is the Little Dipper. Can you find Orion? And sooooo many!

Never in my life have a I seen as many stars in the sky as I have out in the Wachara village in Western Kenya. No light pollution at all, and a sky literally filled with stars. I tried to get a picture, but didn't have the right equipment (so I'll post a picture from the Internet capturing what I was able see with just the naked eye):

The other thing we did while lying on the hood of the car staring at the stars was ponder our existence. How vast the universe! How small I am. How great is the Creator! How amazing that the One who made this would take any notice of little ol' me. I'm not as important as I thought. I fit into a tiny timeslice of a much larger reality, a much grander narrative. I'm nothing, but now I'm something because the Creator knows my name. The stars in the sky gave us a platform to consider the significance and meaning of our own existence. And we did this as kids.

The vast ocean and foreboding mountains can spur these thoughts, too, but even they are itty bitty dots compared to that sky! Nothing else we can see with our own eyes exposes our minuscule existence like the stars at night.

But what if you never get to see them, like 80% of the people in America today? What if you aren't reminded almost every night of every summer that you're nothing because of Creation and that you're something because of the Creator? What happens to your view of self, your view of the world, your view of Creation, and your view of the Creator if you never get to see his biggest masterpiece? What happens to your ego, your sense of purpose, your idea of significance, and your part in the narrative? Do you even see at all that there is a narrative? Light pollution will only increase, driving us well above 80% - what will be the increasing effect on our personalities?

The Bible uses "the stars in the sky" to refer to the vastness of other things. But if you've never really seen the vastness of the stars, can you even read these passages accurately? This phrase is intended to make your jaw drop, but if your jaw has never dropped at the sky, you're more likely to be ho hum than stunned when you read.

(source: http://www.universetoday.com/22285/facts-about-the-milky-way/)

What will we do? Our Creator has put on display for us a stunning view of who we are and who we are not, but we've blinded ourselves from seeing it. And our children will see it even less, and perhaps be hampered from struggling to see how they fit into a vast universe. Unless we bundle them up and take them to see what only 20% of Americans can see on any given night.

The God of the Bad Times

The Royals were on a great winning streak ... 6 in a row, and almost every game for a couple of weeks. Ten games in a row with 10 hits or more. Even with three All Star players injured, they were winning. They had one of the greatest 9th inning comebacks I've ever seen, or likely will ever see again. And then the bottom fell out, losing 5 in a row, with very few hits and a paltry sum of runs. Elation and heartbreak. Everything's going great, and then nothing, and I mean nothing, goes right. There was even a freak throw by an infielder that was supposed to go to first base, but went almost straight down to nail Merrifield on the funny bone. That ball could have gone anywhere, but it just had to hit one of our most productive players on that part of the elbow.

Some feel this way about our nation's history. Things were going along pretty well for a while, with "win" after "win" in almost every arena. And then seemingly in the blink of an eye, the bottom fell out and nothing seems to be going in a good direction. The economy is suffering, good jobs are much harder to find, we have one of the weirdest political seasons in our history, and we're getting into violent disagreements over who gets to use which toidy.

It's easy to feel like God's in control when your home team is "winning," whether that's your favorite sports team, your company, your nation, or even the people of faith. Because of that winning record, so to speak, it sure seems like God is in control.

When when your team can't get a hit, your company is laying off waves of employees, your nation seems to be in ever-worsening disarray, or the people of faith pushed toward the margins, it's easy to feel quite the opposite - that God is somehow not in control. Or perhaps just that He's less in control than He was before. The near-term trend seems even more negative, and so God seems even less in control.

There are plenty of examples in Scripture of God being in total control while His people felt quite the opposite, most notably in the life and death of Jesus. There's also Hebrews 11, which celebrates the actions of faith by those whose lives bore little clue that God was steering the ship. It's helpful to read and reread these accounts. But there's also a sense of "that was them, there, back then." It's a little hard to be completely solaced by the stories of people dead for 2000 years or more.

Perhaps a little logic will help. Think of the times when it really feels like God is in control. Either those times are a complete fraud or they are the very evidence we need. If God is in control in the good times, that means He's sovereign over all things in order to make those times good. Therefore, that means that He's sovereign over bad things as well as good things, whether bad things or good things are currently happening. So, either good times are a fraud, that even then God's not really in control, or the good times are the proof we need to remember that God must be in control of the bad times, too. He's either never sovereign over all things or He's always sovereign over all things. He can't be less in control at any point in time.

An author is control of not only the protagonist characters but also the antagonists. She's in control of both the happy storylines and the sad storylines. The author is no less in control of the difficult parts of the story, and in fact is using both good times and bad times to accomplish the purpose of the narrative.

God's narrative is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. He's the author of that ongoing story. There is no part of the storyline that He's less in control of than others. When we're in the chapters where everything falls apart, the author isn't losing. He's just making the story complete.