I am sitting in my cabin listening to 25 10 year old boys laugh and scream. It has been a very enjoyable
4 days. I have relived my own days at church camp. Remembering how much I was impacted by those summers in the pines.
I came to camp for my son and 4 other boys from our church. I wanted them to have the same memories that I had. But
What I have found her was my own gift. A gift of life. A gift of passion and surprise. Jesus said that unless we become
Like little children we will miss out on the kingdom of heaven. He must have had summer church camp in mind. I have expirianced
The kingdom in a real way this week.
I spent the weekend in Rocky Point Mexico with our friends from weekend missions. Although I have taken this trip well over 15 times, it always amazes me how transformational it is. There were 40 of us from the states on the trip, and we worked on 5 different projects. From building a fence at a church, hanging drywall at a radio station, building a shade at another church, working at a medical clinic, and insulating and dry walling another church, to feeding over 500 people in the barrio hamburgers and hot dogs. It was amazing how much work we did in just a few short hours.
But again one of the most powerful parts of the trip is watching and listening to those that are doing the work. On Saturday night we gather as a group and debrief the day. People are moved on such a huge level that not a few minutes goes by during the sharing that someone isn’t moved to tears. It is amazing how God can move in our own lives, when we make space to serve others. Especially others that are marginalized.
I leave for Kenya in just a few weeks, and I am already beginning to feel the hand of God in my life. Moving me places that He would not otherwise have moved me if I were not serving.
Thanks to my friend and favorite tech pro Matt I am blogging from my blackberry! Hopefully
This will come in handy when we travel to Kenya next month.
Pray for Matt and his wife Stephanie, they leave for Ethiopia
Tomorrow to pick up their new family.
I spent the morning reading and listening to the topic of pain and suffering. Why you ask? Becuase its all around me, including my own, all the time. As luck, or God would have it, my friend Tim Keel from Jacobs Well Church bolged on the same topic. Check it out.
Yesterday I picked up an old issue of Conception Abbey’s seasonal magazine, Tower Topics, from a magazine rack in my office. It was opened to an article I had been meaning to read for a while - okay, since fall 2006 - by Catholic theologian and writer, Father Ron Rolheiser. It is a short little column, but the thrust of the essay, titled “Cultivating Loneliness,” really struck me.
In the essay Rolheiser discusses the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and how throughout his life he refused to avoid suffering. In fact, at key points in his life he knowingly and intentionally leaned into suffering, specifically loneliness. Why? Because he believe that by entering his loneliness he was able to touch the suffering that exists at the heart of human life. His ability to identify with what is common to all human experience, namely pain, is what makes his writing so exceptional and touching.
Rolheiser references Albert Camus’ idea that “it is in solitude and loneliness that we find the threads that bind us together in community.” For Kierkegaard, loneliness gave his soul depth. If we are willing to be present to ourselves in loneliness, refusing to anesthetize ourselves, then we will learn something of who we are. Rolheiser writes that “…by being introduced more deeply to ourselves we are also introduced more deeply to each other…[Kierkegaard] felt that what he had to give to the world came a lot from his own loneliness and that he could share more deeply in other peoples’ loneliness only if he felt that loneliness himself.”
I believe it is only when we are willing to enter our pain and stay there that any measure of true healing can take place - both our own and that of others as well. Why? Because I believe that it is often in our pain that we come face to face our limitations and maybe, for the first time, look beyond both ourself and our pain to find God there with us. I believe that is pain/suffering/loneliness where true compassion is birthed. I think this is what the Apostle Paul is up to when he writes that God is the God of all comfort, “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). But not just that. I also believe that pain/suffering/loneliness is also where true creativity is birthed. Rolheiser says as much, quoting Kierkegaard, then opining beyond that quote towards what is to me a hopeful conclusion:
“‘What is a poet?’ Kierkegaard once asked. His answer: ‘A poet is an unhappy person who conceals deep torments in his or her heart, but whose lips are so formed that when a groan or shriek streams over them it sounds like beautiful music.’ Loneliness is what makes us poets, mystics, artists, philosophers, musicians, healers, and saints.”
You can read Rolheiser’s original article here, as well as a subsequent article he wrote about discerning when cultivating loneliness becomes not a fertile sadness that benefits others but instead an unhealthy, “sterile sadness that drains energy out of the world.”
I decided to spend the money and get a smart phone last year, and it was one of the best things I have ever invested in. I get email, phone calls, calendar, text messages, and pictures. I can access twitter, facebook, and the Internet with the click of a button. But the best application I have found is called You Version for my black berry. I am able to access the Bible with a click. It also has a window that gives me verses that will allow me to read through the entire Bible in a year. I started two weeks ago and have managed to keep it going so far. Its so cool to be able to pull up my verses for day where ever I am at and read them. It makes it easy to read any time, any place.
i also have that cool level app that lets me see if a surface is level anywhere! Not really necessary but fun to have…..
A woman holds her malnourished child at the Banaadir Hospital in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, May 5, 2009. Somalia’s worst drought in a decade is pushing growing numbers of children into near-famine conditions and deepening the humanitarian crisis caused by political violence, the United Nations warned on Tuesday. REUTERS
I have been talking to my friend Edward Simiyu, the pastor of City Harvest Church in Nairobi, and leader of a group called Ithemba. It appears that the global economic situation has finally reached to the least of these. They have lost almost all of their outside support for the AIDS testing, schools, micro loan programs, and his own livelihood as a pastor. Its not good. On top of this his mother that lives in the N. Rift Valley recently had a mild stroke, she still lives on the family farm. The Rift Valley is in one of the worst droughts in recent history, so most of the corn that is grown there will not be this year.
It seems that the perfect storm has arrived for our brothers and sisters in E. Africa. We know what the economic shift has done to our upper class neighborhoods, and cities. Imagine what is taking place where the average income is $1 a day? Top this all off with a lack of domestic food being grown.
The least of these are facing a huge problem, much larger than the swine flu; which the media could not get enough of. Who will speak for these people? Who will help these people? Who will go to these people? After all, they are not just those people, they are our brothers and sisters that live on the other side of the world.
Will you help me, help them? Please contact me @ rusty@cohmaricopaif you can, and will help in some way. We can not pretend its not happening, because its not happening to us. A group from COH will be traveling to Kenya in July, our hope is that we can some how be a part of the help for our friends.
If you are driving past our property at Porter Rd. and Adams way you may notice that some portable buildings are being staged. This is because COH has entered into an agreement with Leading Edge Acadamy to lease them ground for a school. In return COH will have access to part of the building for our Sunday gatherings, as well as other gatherings throughout the week. We hope to have more information available as soon as we get it. Its all happening very, very, fast, and its very exciting news. Stay Tuned for more!
Hard to believe that I will be making my third trip to Africa this summer. My wife Lisa, my good friend Waz, and myself will be traveling to Nairobi and parts unknown from July 9-24. We will be hanging out with out with Pastor Edward again, and hopefully be heading to N.W. Kenya to visit the Pokot people. I am so looking forward to being in Africa again. It has grown on me in a way I did not expect. I almost long for people, the sounds, the smells, the sights, and the textures. There is something deeply spiritual about it, and I really can’t explain it. I can only say that I miss it, and I can’t wait to to sense it once again. This time I will have my friends with me, and I can only imagine the fun we will have. Keep us in your prayers, and as always would greatly be encouraged by your emails, and calls. Amahoro…
