Ann Speyer and Christopher DeJong
Greetings, First Mennonite Church of San Francisco, and we sure do miss you! From our vantage point in Cameroon, we figure we’ve taken the concept of ‘new life’ to a whole new level. For one year, we’ve literally chosen a life that is completely new to us. New country, people, culture, language, weather, foods, work, and everyday surroundings. This halfway point in our year is a perfect time to reflect on what we’ve been noticing around and within us, and we thank you for the invitation to do so with you. If you want to respond to this in any way, feel free to email us!
Poverty, AIDS, war, famine, corruption…the news most Americans get from Africa is not exactly brimming with resurrection and hope. But good news doesn't sell newspapers, as the saying goes, so maybe this says more about the media than about Africa. Where are the signs of new life in Cameroon, whose government is consistently recognized among the most corrupt in the world? The joke goes that they were voted the most corrupt country in the world, but paid to be moved to second place.
We're happy to say that in actuality, we see signs of resistance and resurrection here every day. Yaoundé, the capital city where we make our home, is bursting with new life and hope. Our neighborhood is near the southern edge of town, where the hillsides are dotted with half-finished houses, places where people hope to establish themselves and their families, each one a concrete investment toward the future. People flock to the city from surrounding regions, and from the dry deserts of the Far North, all hoping to find a better life in Yaoundé. There is a shadow side to this new life, as the city becomes increasingly crowded, crime increases, and there is never enough paid work for all. But the hope and determination that draw people here are beautiful, powerful forces. Like many others in Africa, Yaounde is a city of dreams.
We also see new life in the green and growing things that cover the immensely fertile regions of Cameroon. The markets spill over with fruits and vegetables and spices grown in the soil here, and even our urban area is sprouting with mango and papaya trees, banana and plantain trees, the huge leafy plants in the swamp behind our house, the riot of orange flowers in our backyard. Boys hack away roadside grass with sharp machetes, and land owners burn tangles of brush, but it all grows back eagerly. Even now, the rainy season is starting, and nature is staging an extravagant show of new life all around us. The glorious explosive rolls of thunder we lie in bed and listen to, so rare back home in San Francisco, remind us of our childhoods in Michigan, and herald new growth all around us.
The people we meet and the work we see going on here also resist the forces of death and discouragement and create more signs of resurrection. The neighborhood where we currently house-sit is full of expatriates and locals working together to translate the Bible into over 250 local languages. While we might not agree completely with the theology that motivates them, their work is important and empowering for the speakers of all these languages, as they work with local people to teach literacy skills and to capture African languages for the future, often writing them down for the first time. New life is breathed into each language as it is studied, written, preserved, dignified, and used in new ways. And those who do the work seem to find real fulfillment and positive collaboration in what they do.
RELUFA, the network of Cameroonian non-profits with which we work, also engages in numerous life-giving projects. We have some amazing and visionary colleagues determined to work for justice in their country, even when the odds seem insurmountable. Meeting beneficiaries of RELUFA’s micro-credit program, we’ve been impressed with their creativity and resourcefulness, and the way access to small loans gives new life and hope to people’s activities and aspirations. Granaries in the north help villages save their millet harvest to eat during leaner times instead of selling it off to speculators and then buying it back at a huge markup when times are lean. Lawyers and other advocates work hard to hold logging, mining, and oil companies accountable for how they treat the land and its people by confronting them with the human cost of their activities, and by persuading them to open their books to international public scrutiny. These truly are small resurrections in the face of death-dealing forces like poverty, hunger, injustice and exploitation.
Of course, the new life we notice here in Cameroon is not only around us, but within us too. As volunteer workers in a culture with a very relaxed attitude toward time, we find ourselves removed from the constant feeling of hurry that’s built in to our San Francisco life. For the most part, it’s been really lovely, allowing us to take time to read widely, cook meals together, explore the reaches of our neighborhood on foot, and (perhaps for the first time in our adult lives) get enough sleep – all the time! This unique opportunity to slow down for a year is definitely very renewing for us. We hope to bring home some enduring lessons about the value of living slowly.
Another effect we notice is our ability to be more present in our interactions with others, and to truly take time for conversations and social interactions. Everyone does this here, even foreigners, and people aren’t always thinking about rushing off to the next thing on their agenda. Although it took us time to get used to it, we now appreciate the fact that building relationships and interacting with others is an important part of life here, even of work and business.
Our relationship to each other also gets more time here, and consequently more growth. Here our work, home life, and social activities overlap almost completely, so conflicts and communication issues which would be easier to ignore in our busier and more divergent lives back home are pulled into the light. It’s hard work sometimes, but also a wonderful opportunity to face and deal with these things, getting to know each other and our marriage more fully in the process.
Another important area of growth for us has come through the challenges of adjusting to our ‘new life’ in Cameroon. We are certainly out of our comfort zones in various ways, whether it’s our inability to communicate well in French, the constant attention that comes with being a racial minority, increased safety concerns, personal requests for money and favors that would be out of place back home, or any number of other adjustments to an unfamiliar culture. While the everyday struggles of most Cameroonians serve as a good reality check, making our problems seem petty in comparison, it has been good for us to acknowledge our own struggles and accompany each other through them, widening our horizons in the process.
On a broader scale we are faced with gaping disparities of wealth every day, with the harsh realities of how many people of the world live. Our privilege is supported by complicated systems of exploitation that contribute to the misery of the poor, and the lack of simple solutions and clear courses of action is painfully clear. But even hard truths like these are laced with resurrection for us, in that we don’t want to give up. Being here has brought to life for us how important it is to engage with our world, and to act out of hope so that hope can remain alive. It's said that we can truly change only ourselves, so educating ourselves is a gift to the world, because from this can flow a lifetime of informed engagement and hope.
Finally, stepping out of our usual surroundings and into this new life has sharpened our perspective on what we’ve chosen to leave behind for a year. The relationships, the natural beauty, the food, the cultural opportunities, our spiritual home at First Mennonite, and the general vibrancy of San Francisco (as well as a mean temperature of about 60 degrees, as far as Chris is concerned) …our appreciation of all this grows deeper across the distance. There is much that we are excited to return to! When we do return, shaped by our experiences here in Cameroon, we hope to find ways to hold these new thoughts and spaces that this year is opening for us, to bring new life to the way we live and maybe to our community too.
We love you. Peace.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
"Christ Has Descended! Allelujah!"
Easter Sunday
Jeremiah 31:1-6, Matthew 18:1-10
Sheri Hostetler, Pastor
There is a darkness within us. It is strong, and it is deep. Yes, there is also a burning light, an Inner light as the Quakers call it, that of God in us. I’ve frankly seen more goodness come out of people than bad. And yet, the darkness is there, and the events of this past Holy Week force us to look at it. Morton Kelsey, who wrote one of essays Worship Committee provided for Holy Week, is a priest and psychologist. "Each of us," he says, "has underneath our ordinary personality, which we show to the public, a cellar in which we hide the refuse and rubbish which we would rather not see ourselves or let others see."[1] This darkness takes many half-shapes: fear, a sorrow so deep no balm can soothe it, shame, jealousies, regrets and grievances, an anger that can erupt out of seemingly nowhere.
It gets worse, however. Below this basement, Kelsey says, lies a sub-basement, a "deeper hold in which there are dragons and demons, a truly hellish place, full of violence and hatred and viciousness. Sometimes these lower levels break out, and it is to this lowest level of humans that public executions appeal."
Any of you who have ever been to a vigil outside San Quentin on the night of an execution and have seen the demonstrators holding signs saying, "Fry him," cheering as a person is put to death, will know what Kelsey is talking about. One only need read an account of Jesus’ crucifixion to know the same thing, as crowds clamor for him to die, as soldiers jeer as they press thorns into his head, as guards at the foot of his cross gamble to see who will get his robes. It’s why I can almost not stand to hear this story, because it reminds me of this sub-basement, of the cruelty that hides in some monstrously dark part of us. It reminds me that crucifixions – on a vastly larger scale – have happened so often in human history and continue to happen.
There is a darkness deep within us. From our personal demons to the collective ogre that can emerge at times, this darkness has the power to make life a living hell.
Holy Week forces us to contemplate this darkness. As I have done this, I have also at the same time been transfixed by an icon which you have it in your order of worship, and I invite you to take it out if you wish. This icon comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition – one of the three great streams of Christianity, along with the Catholic and Protestant. The Orthodox tradition believes that art – in the form of icons – can be as revelatory of spiritual truth as words are. Perhaps even moreso. So, you find lots of icons in the Orthodox tradition. They are, literally, considered sacred texts.
Interestingly, there are very few icons for the Resurrection, the main event in Christianity. This is because the Orthodox faith sees the Resurrection as a deep Mystery, one that cannot be captured in word or picture. They point out that the Gospel accounts themselves are silent about the details of this central mystery of our faith – we come to the Tomb after Jesus has risen, not while he is being risen. So, instead of depicting the physical act of Jesus’ emerging from the Tomb, icons depicting the resurrection show the spiritual reality of what his death and resurrection accomplished.
You have one of those icons in your hand, commonly called "The Descent Into Hell" (although here called "The Triumph Over Death" – it’s the same icon, however). The Eastern Orthodox Church uses this icon all throughout the Easter season but primarily on Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. On this day, the Eastern Orthodox Church contemplates the mystery of Christ’s descent into Hades, the place of darkness and death. We don’t often say the Apostles’ Creed in our congregation, but this "Descent into Hell" idea is found in that creed: "We believe in Jesus Christ… who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. The third day he rose again." So, somewhere between death and resurrection, there is this descent.
This icon shows this descent, shows Christ – often riding a cross, although not in the one you have – descending into the dark belly of the earth, breaking the locked door of the tomb (see locks on this icon), and exposing the deepest recesses of creation to the light of heaven. Christ is seen as entering so profoundly into the human condition and into creation itself, that he penetrates the deepest realms of sin and death. And once there, he brings to these dark places the light of God. This, the Orthodox tradition says, is the essential spiritual truth of the resurrection – that there is no place so dark that Divine Light cannot enter it.
In other words, Christ descends into our locked basements, where our fear, shame, and anger wait in dark corners, and exposes them to the healing light of his love. I have experienced this light in my life. Many years ago, I was going through a time of deep internal struggle. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like my life. I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted to. It was during this time that I was drawn to meditation. I began attending a small meditation community in Oakland called Hesed. Almost every day for several months, I would go to that house on Elston Avenue and sit in the basement, where the Chapel was located.
Most of the time, I did what I was supposed to do – say my mantra and follow my breath, going back to that no matter where my monkey mind wandered. But some of the time, I did something else. I would imagine myself sitting there, in that basement, with a spotlight of Divine love enclosing me in a circle. The light wasn’t harsh or bright, but golden – much like the gold in this icon, actually. It felt like a warm, loving, healing light. And sometimes, as I sat there bathed in light, I would see shapes off in the darkness outside the circle. I would call them into the light, to sit with me. Sometimes, I would recognize them – there’s the 11-year-old Sheri. I know why she’s here. Sometimes, I wouldn’t know who they were or why there were sitting in the dark, but I invited them in just the same. Mostly, they seemed like parts of me, but not always. It didn’t matter. We were just sitting there, in the light of love. This Divine Light unlocked the door to my own darkness, exposing the deeper recesses of my own basement to the light of heaven. It healed me in profound ways for which I am still grateful.
Even more astonishingly, though, this icon proclaims that Christ descends even into our sub-basements, where our most dangerous dragons and demons lurk, and shines the light of heaven even there. Some of you may remember the story Ben told last Sunday during our joys and concerns time. He was part of a gathering recently where two Japanese kamikaze pilots shared their stories – kamikazes were aviators who would intentionally crash their aircraft into U.S. warship. Killing yourself was considered utter heresy, the pilots said. But the Japanese felt so weak military and so cornered by the U.S. – which they feared would take over their country – that they felt this heresy was the only way to prevent their own destruction as a country. One of the Japanese men described his transition from naval seaman to kamikaze pilot:
"I did not tell my father of what I was chosen to do. He knew I was off to war, but the only thing he could say to me was to "come home, just come home." Now I had to arrange what would happen to my parents (after I died). I had to overcome much suffering, and I suffered greatly internally over this issue. All of us in the program became very close because we had all been given one task: to die. We had to overcome that very instinct in all of us to survive, to live. We had to conquer death and plunge ourselves into an abyss of fire."
It turns out this man was shot down before he hit his target and was stranded on an island for 82 days before being found by his countrymen. Nevertheless, he did enter an abyss of fire some months later. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August of 1945, this same man arrived the next day to witness the destruction. "What I saw," he said, "I will never forget until the end of my days. I witnessed the destruction of a people. Nothing was left. People weeping Children with no parents, parents with no children. Bodies twisted."
This man had descended into hell. He had entered the sub-basement of our species, and seen what we can do to each other. He could have decided right then and there that he would spend the rest of his life seeking vengeance for what had happened. It would be the normal response. In fact, it would be hard to blame a person for choosing this. Instead, he said, "That day I knew I could not be the person I was. I could not go on like this. On August 7, 1945, I renounced vengeance. I renounced war."
When I hear this, I think of the time Jerome and I drove through Yosemite National Park, about a year after a forest fire devastated much of the park, leaving a lunar landscape in its wake, a land of gray and black, a land of death. By the time we drove through that same area months later, patches of green grass, even some flowers, were growing beside the hulks of charred trees. When I hear this story of the Japanese man who renounced war on August 7, 1945, I see one small, green shoot rising through a scorched land. And I say: The darkness is strong. The darkness is deep. But there is no place that the Light cannot shine.
In fact, there was one more than one green blade rising through the devastated landscape of Japan. That pilot was not the only one to renounce war. The Japanese Constitution, drawn up after World War II under the guidelines of the U.S., formally renounced war and the use of military force in offensive ways. One can say this Constitution was imposed upon them, and very quickly after this, some in Japan – at the urging of the U.S. – wanted to amend the Constitution and rearm. But the people said no. They had had enough of war and death. To this day, the Constitution remains intact. Japan also refuses to export military hardware to other countries and is the only nation with a space exploration program, but no nuclear weapons.
The darkness is strong. The darkness is deep. But there is no place that the Light cannot shine.
For Christ has descended – and is still descending – into the deepest, darkest recesses of our humanity and is exposing it to the light of heaven. Christ has descended – and is still descending -- into the suffering we bear, the suffering we inflict on each other, and is working a new thing in its midst. Christ has descended – and is still descending – into the locked, dark places of our hearts and our world, and breaking down doors of violence, hatred, despair, shame and fear.
Christ has arisen! Alleluia! And Christ has descended. Will you say it with me? Alleluia.
[1] From Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, Orbis Books.
It gets worse, however. Below this basement, Kelsey says, lies a sub-basement, a "deeper hold in which there are dragons and demons, a truly hellish place, full of violence and hatred and viciousness. Sometimes these lower levels break out, and it is to this lowest level of humans that public executions appeal."
Any of you who have ever been to a vigil outside San Quentin on the night of an execution and have seen the demonstrators holding signs saying, "Fry him," cheering as a person is put to death, will know what Kelsey is talking about. One only need read an account of Jesus’ crucifixion to know the same thing, as crowds clamor for him to die, as soldiers jeer as they press thorns into his head, as guards at the foot of his cross gamble to see who will get his robes. It’s why I can almost not stand to hear this story, because it reminds me of this sub-basement, of the cruelty that hides in some monstrously dark part of us. It reminds me that crucifixions – on a vastly larger scale – have happened so often in human history and continue to happen.
There is a darkness deep within us. From our personal demons to the collective ogre that can emerge at times, this darkness has the power to make life a living hell.
Holy Week forces us to contemplate this darkness. As I have done this, I have also at the same time been transfixed by an icon which you have it in your order of worship, and I invite you to take it out if you wish. This icon comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition – one of the three great streams of Christianity, along with the Catholic and Protestant. The Orthodox tradition believes that art – in the form of icons – can be as revelatory of spiritual truth as words are. Perhaps even moreso. So, you find lots of icons in the Orthodox tradition. They are, literally, considered sacred texts.
Interestingly, there are very few icons for the Resurrection, the main event in Christianity. This is because the Orthodox faith sees the Resurrection as a deep Mystery, one that cannot be captured in word or picture. They point out that the Gospel accounts themselves are silent about the details of this central mystery of our faith – we come to the Tomb after Jesus has risen, not while he is being risen. So, instead of depicting the physical act of Jesus’ emerging from the Tomb, icons depicting the resurrection show the spiritual reality of what his death and resurrection accomplished.
You have one of those icons in your hand, commonly called "The Descent Into Hell" (although here called "The Triumph Over Death" – it’s the same icon, however). The Eastern Orthodox Church uses this icon all throughout the Easter season but primarily on Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. On this day, the Eastern Orthodox Church contemplates the mystery of Christ’s descent into Hades, the place of darkness and death. We don’t often say the Apostles’ Creed in our congregation, but this "Descent into Hell" idea is found in that creed: "We believe in Jesus Christ… who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. The third day he rose again." So, somewhere between death and resurrection, there is this descent.
This icon shows this descent, shows Christ – often riding a cross, although not in the one you have – descending into the dark belly of the earth, breaking the locked door of the tomb (see locks on this icon), and exposing the deepest recesses of creation to the light of heaven. Christ is seen as entering so profoundly into the human condition and into creation itself, that he penetrates the deepest realms of sin and death. And once there, he brings to these dark places the light of God. This, the Orthodox tradition says, is the essential spiritual truth of the resurrection – that there is no place so dark that Divine Light cannot enter it.
In other words, Christ descends into our locked basements, where our fear, shame, and anger wait in dark corners, and exposes them to the healing light of his love. I have experienced this light in my life. Many years ago, I was going through a time of deep internal struggle. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like my life. I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted to. It was during this time that I was drawn to meditation. I began attending a small meditation community in Oakland called Hesed. Almost every day for several months, I would go to that house on Elston Avenue and sit in the basement, where the Chapel was located.
Most of the time, I did what I was supposed to do – say my mantra and follow my breath, going back to that no matter where my monkey mind wandered. But some of the time, I did something else. I would imagine myself sitting there, in that basement, with a spotlight of Divine love enclosing me in a circle. The light wasn’t harsh or bright, but golden – much like the gold in this icon, actually. It felt like a warm, loving, healing light. And sometimes, as I sat there bathed in light, I would see shapes off in the darkness outside the circle. I would call them into the light, to sit with me. Sometimes, I would recognize them – there’s the 11-year-old Sheri. I know why she’s here. Sometimes, I wouldn’t know who they were or why there were sitting in the dark, but I invited them in just the same. Mostly, they seemed like parts of me, but not always. It didn’t matter. We were just sitting there, in the light of love. This Divine Light unlocked the door to my own darkness, exposing the deeper recesses of my own basement to the light of heaven. It healed me in profound ways for which I am still grateful.
Even more astonishingly, though, this icon proclaims that Christ descends even into our sub-basements, where our most dangerous dragons and demons lurk, and shines the light of heaven even there. Some of you may remember the story Ben told last Sunday during our joys and concerns time. He was part of a gathering recently where two Japanese kamikaze pilots shared their stories – kamikazes were aviators who would intentionally crash their aircraft into U.S. warship. Killing yourself was considered utter heresy, the pilots said. But the Japanese felt so weak military and so cornered by the U.S. – which they feared would take over their country – that they felt this heresy was the only way to prevent their own destruction as a country. One of the Japanese men described his transition from naval seaman to kamikaze pilot:
"I did not tell my father of what I was chosen to do. He knew I was off to war, but the only thing he could say to me was to "come home, just come home." Now I had to arrange what would happen to my parents (after I died). I had to overcome much suffering, and I suffered greatly internally over this issue. All of us in the program became very close because we had all been given one task: to die. We had to overcome that very instinct in all of us to survive, to live. We had to conquer death and plunge ourselves into an abyss of fire."
It turns out this man was shot down before he hit his target and was stranded on an island for 82 days before being found by his countrymen. Nevertheless, he did enter an abyss of fire some months later. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August of 1945, this same man arrived the next day to witness the destruction. "What I saw," he said, "I will never forget until the end of my days. I witnessed the destruction of a people. Nothing was left. People weeping Children with no parents, parents with no children. Bodies twisted."
This man had descended into hell. He had entered the sub-basement of our species, and seen what we can do to each other. He could have decided right then and there that he would spend the rest of his life seeking vengeance for what had happened. It would be the normal response. In fact, it would be hard to blame a person for choosing this. Instead, he said, "That day I knew I could not be the person I was. I could not go on like this. On August 7, 1945, I renounced vengeance. I renounced war."
When I hear this, I think of the time Jerome and I drove through Yosemite National Park, about a year after a forest fire devastated much of the park, leaving a lunar landscape in its wake, a land of gray and black, a land of death. By the time we drove through that same area months later, patches of green grass, even some flowers, were growing beside the hulks of charred trees. When I hear this story of the Japanese man who renounced war on August 7, 1945, I see one small, green shoot rising through a scorched land. And I say: The darkness is strong. The darkness is deep. But there is no place that the Light cannot shine.
In fact, there was one more than one green blade rising through the devastated landscape of Japan. That pilot was not the only one to renounce war. The Japanese Constitution, drawn up after World War II under the guidelines of the U.S., formally renounced war and the use of military force in offensive ways. One can say this Constitution was imposed upon them, and very quickly after this, some in Japan – at the urging of the U.S. – wanted to amend the Constitution and rearm. But the people said no. They had had enough of war and death. To this day, the Constitution remains intact. Japan also refuses to export military hardware to other countries and is the only nation with a space exploration program, but no nuclear weapons.
The darkness is strong. The darkness is deep. But there is no place that the Light cannot shine.
For Christ has descended – and is still descending – into the deepest, darkest recesses of our humanity and is exposing it to the light of heaven. Christ has descended – and is still descending -- into the suffering we bear, the suffering we inflict on each other, and is working a new thing in its midst. Christ has descended – and is still descending – into the locked, dark places of our hearts and our world, and breaking down doors of violence, hatred, despair, shame and fear.
Christ has arisen! Alleluia! And Christ has descended. Will you say it with me? Alleluia.
[1] From Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, Orbis Books.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
"Facing Jerusalem"
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-9a
Those of you who have been reading Chris and Ann’s blog while they are in Cameroon may recall a posting from Chris from a few months ago, not too long after they got to Africa:
“Hi, friends,” he began. “So here’s a question for you, one that looms large for us here in Cameroon: What do we do with the massive disparity in wealth between us and the people we see around us every day?
“You can get an education here, but you can't get a job unless you know somebody. For those with a job, income seems to be about a tenth of what it is in the U.S. .. And while rent is about a tenth of what it is at home in San Francisco, food is just as expensive and gasoline is more than double… most people here do at least have family in the villages and enough to eat. I don't feel like I can change anything, other than perhaps myself. But is simply cultivating an awareness of other people's poverty, and living mindfully, really anything more than pious self-help? I wonder that about our choice to volunteer here.
“So what do you think? The question again is: ‘What do we do with the massive disparity in wealth between ourselves and the people we see everyday?’”
Well, what do you think? How do we eat breakfast, knowing somewhere that children aren’t? How do we rest between clean sheets, knowing somewhere that a family is sleeping on the streets?
So, friends, here’s another question for us: How do we live with the reality of the Iraq war, the unending human tragedy that our taxes have paid for and are paying for? In a recent interview, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-winning economist, projected that the total costs of this war would exceed two trillion dollars. Let’s put that amount of money into perspective, he says. We have a major crisis with our Social Security system, right? For somewhere between a half and quarter of the cost of the war in Iraq, we could have fixed all the problems associated with Social Security for the next 75 years and still have had a lot left over. Or, to put it another way: We are now spending something like $120 billion a year on Iraq. The amount the entire world gives in foreign aid each year is about half that.
So, what do you think? The question again is: “How do we live with the reality of the Iraq war?”
OK. Wait a second. Enough with the questions. This is Palm Sunday. It’s a celebration. It’s happy. We’ve just got done waving palm branches for the ice cream man and singing a happy song: Jesus is coming! Pave the way with branches! Yes, and we also sang “release for the captives, pave the way with branches, “ “hope for the downtrodden, pave the way with branches,” “land for the landless, pave the way with branches.” We could also have sung, “food for the hungry, pave the way with branches,” for along that highway that Jesus took into Jerusalem, there would have undoubtedly been hungry children waving palm branches. He lived in a time when the disparity of wealth between people was stark; a few people had it all, and most people struggled to get by. Daily, like us, Jesus faced the question: “So what do you think? What do you do with the massive disparity in wealth?”
He also lived in a time of empire. The Roman empire of his day exerted total military and economic control over the nations it occupied. Tax money was collected from the poor to fuel the Roman war machine. Daily, like us, Jesus faced the question: “So how do we live in an empire that funds its military at the expense of its people?”
What do we do? What is our response?
Jesus answered that question on a spring day some 2,000 years ago by deciding to turn his face toward Jerusalem. His ministry, up to this point, had been focused around the Sea of Galilee, a rural area almost 70 miles away from Jerusalem. In that time of travel by foot, he is a long distance away from this the seat of Roman power and authority. He doesn’t have to go to Jerusalem. He can where he is, at a safe distance, and still do his good work of healing and teaching.
But Jerusalem is where the suffering he sees begins. It’s where the taxes are levied that deprive poor people of even more of their meager resources. It’s where the unjust laws that kick poor farmers off their land are enacted. And it’s where those religious leaders who collaborate with the Romans provide the necessary religious legitimation for the empire’s unjust policies.
And, so, he turns his face toward Jerusalem, the place where suffering and oppression must be confronted and engaged. Did Jesus know what he would face there? Some say he knew that he was going to his death, knew that this had to happen. Others say, no, he didn’t know for sure, he was human. But certainly would have known that confronting the powers in Jerusalem could have consequences. He knew what fate could befall prophets. And he knew, as the prophet Isaiah said centuries earlier, that he would not hide his face from insult and spitting, from the persecution sometimes meted out to those who dare dream a new dream, who prophesy a world where the poor and the powerless are not condemned to suffer.
And so we begin this Holy Week with Jesus, facing Jerusalem and entering it. Confronting the darkness of human evil. Engaging the source of suffering. We don’t have to do this, of course, right? We could easily have this next week be just like any other week: a week where our immediate cares predominate, where the urgent but not necessarily important takes up most of our time and mental space. Like Jesus, we have a choice as to whether or not we want to turn our face toward Jerusalem. Whether we want to enter into it.
If we do choose to enter into it, we need to do so intentionally. We may need to turn off the TV, the computer, the IPod. We may need to say no to some emails or phone calls that urgently call to us. If we can do this, if we can slow down and create the space, we may begin to hear those questions that tug at our conscience, that claw at our heart. If we can do this, we may begin to see the outlines of our own Jerusalem, that place where we must confront and engage suffering and oppression.
There are no easy answers here, on the way to Jerusalem. The people who commented to Chris’ question on his blog – including myself – offered up no easy way to solve a complex moral question. There’s no quick fix to suffering and oppression. But there is the willingness to let ourselves by disturbed and undone by these questions. To continue to allow them to irritate us, overwhelm us, change us. That’s what it means to face Jerusalem – to face the suffering and pain that makes us uncomfortable and be willing to stare it in the face, even while we long to look away.
If we choose to enter Jerusalem this week, we will need to experience a small portion of Jesus’ passion with him – remember, passion means suffering. We will need to experience some of Jesus’ suffering with him. Who wants to do that? That’s not happy. It’s not palm branches or the ice cream man. But it is: hope for the hopeless, release for the captive, food for the hungry. Amen.
Matthew 21:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-9a
Those of you who have been reading Chris and Ann’s blog while they are in Cameroon may recall a posting from Chris from a few months ago, not too long after they got to Africa:
“Hi, friends,” he began. “So here’s a question for you, one that looms large for us here in Cameroon: What do we do with the massive disparity in wealth between us and the people we see around us every day?
“You can get an education here, but you can't get a job unless you know somebody. For those with a job, income seems to be about a tenth of what it is in the U.S. .. And while rent is about a tenth of what it is at home in San Francisco, food is just as expensive and gasoline is more than double… most people here do at least have family in the villages and enough to eat. I don't feel like I can change anything, other than perhaps myself. But is simply cultivating an awareness of other people's poverty, and living mindfully, really anything more than pious self-help? I wonder that about our choice to volunteer here.
“So what do you think? The question again is: ‘What do we do with the massive disparity in wealth between ourselves and the people we see everyday?’”
Well, what do you think? How do we eat breakfast, knowing somewhere that children aren’t? How do we rest between clean sheets, knowing somewhere that a family is sleeping on the streets?
So, friends, here’s another question for us: How do we live with the reality of the Iraq war, the unending human tragedy that our taxes have paid for and are paying for? In a recent interview, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-winning economist, projected that the total costs of this war would exceed two trillion dollars. Let’s put that amount of money into perspective, he says. We have a major crisis with our Social Security system, right? For somewhere between a half and quarter of the cost of the war in Iraq, we could have fixed all the problems associated with Social Security for the next 75 years and still have had a lot left over. Or, to put it another way: We are now spending something like $120 billion a year on Iraq. The amount the entire world gives in foreign aid each year is about half that.
So, what do you think? The question again is: “How do we live with the reality of the Iraq war?”
OK. Wait a second. Enough with the questions. This is Palm Sunday. It’s a celebration. It’s happy. We’ve just got done waving palm branches for the ice cream man and singing a happy song: Jesus is coming! Pave the way with branches! Yes, and we also sang “release for the captives, pave the way with branches, “ “hope for the downtrodden, pave the way with branches,” “land for the landless, pave the way with branches.” We could also have sung, “food for the hungry, pave the way with branches,” for along that highway that Jesus took into Jerusalem, there would have undoubtedly been hungry children waving palm branches. He lived in a time when the disparity of wealth between people was stark; a few people had it all, and most people struggled to get by. Daily, like us, Jesus faced the question: “So what do you think? What do you do with the massive disparity in wealth?”
He also lived in a time of empire. The Roman empire of his day exerted total military and economic control over the nations it occupied. Tax money was collected from the poor to fuel the Roman war machine. Daily, like us, Jesus faced the question: “So how do we live in an empire that funds its military at the expense of its people?”
What do we do? What is our response?
Jesus answered that question on a spring day some 2,000 years ago by deciding to turn his face toward Jerusalem. His ministry, up to this point, had been focused around the Sea of Galilee, a rural area almost 70 miles away from Jerusalem. In that time of travel by foot, he is a long distance away from this the seat of Roman power and authority. He doesn’t have to go to Jerusalem. He can where he is, at a safe distance, and still do his good work of healing and teaching.
But Jerusalem is where the suffering he sees begins. It’s where the taxes are levied that deprive poor people of even more of their meager resources. It’s where the unjust laws that kick poor farmers off their land are enacted. And it’s where those religious leaders who collaborate with the Romans provide the necessary religious legitimation for the empire’s unjust policies.
And, so, he turns his face toward Jerusalem, the place where suffering and oppression must be confronted and engaged. Did Jesus know what he would face there? Some say he knew that he was going to his death, knew that this had to happen. Others say, no, he didn’t know for sure, he was human. But certainly would have known that confronting the powers in Jerusalem could have consequences. He knew what fate could befall prophets. And he knew, as the prophet Isaiah said centuries earlier, that he would not hide his face from insult and spitting, from the persecution sometimes meted out to those who dare dream a new dream, who prophesy a world where the poor and the powerless are not condemned to suffer.
And so we begin this Holy Week with Jesus, facing Jerusalem and entering it. Confronting the darkness of human evil. Engaging the source of suffering. We don’t have to do this, of course, right? We could easily have this next week be just like any other week: a week where our immediate cares predominate, where the urgent but not necessarily important takes up most of our time and mental space. Like Jesus, we have a choice as to whether or not we want to turn our face toward Jerusalem. Whether we want to enter into it.
If we do choose to enter into it, we need to do so intentionally. We may need to turn off the TV, the computer, the IPod. We may need to say no to some emails or phone calls that urgently call to us. If we can do this, if we can slow down and create the space, we may begin to hear those questions that tug at our conscience, that claw at our heart. If we can do this, we may begin to see the outlines of our own Jerusalem, that place where we must confront and engage suffering and oppression.
There are no easy answers here, on the way to Jerusalem. The people who commented to Chris’ question on his blog – including myself – offered up no easy way to solve a complex moral question. There’s no quick fix to suffering and oppression. But there is the willingness to let ourselves by disturbed and undone by these questions. To continue to allow them to irritate us, overwhelm us, change us. That’s what it means to face Jerusalem – to face the suffering and pain that makes us uncomfortable and be willing to stare it in the face, even while we long to look away.
If we choose to enter Jerusalem this week, we will need to experience a small portion of Jesus’ passion with him – remember, passion means suffering. We will need to experience some of Jesus’ suffering with him. Who wants to do that? That’s not happy. It’s not palm branches or the ice cream man. But it is: hope for the hopeless, release for the captive, food for the hungry. Amen.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
"Life Purpose" Reflection
Randy Newswanger
March 2, 2008
Luke 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
When you lie awake in the middle of the night, do you wonder if what you do makes a difference? Do you wonder if what you do really matters?
I know that every person in this room is making a difference. I know that you give time and money to projects and committees of this church, and many other organizations. But how do we decide which time we spend doing what tasks for ourselves, for our families, for our communities, and for the world? How do we decide when to make a difference? How do we decide what really matters?
We each have a default mechanism for making decisions. Most of the time, on most days, we are able to flow through life responding to the world around us, with constant thinking and decision making. But we don’t stop at each decision and analyze the specific dilemma in front of us, pull out our systematic theology, consult our astrologer, read the tea leaves, flip a coin, or roll some dice. If we did that at every decision, it would be sunset before we finished breakfast. The basic framework that we each use to efficiently make decisions is our own personal ethic.
In my family, when a meal was eaten, the next step was to wash the dishes, dry them, and put them away. It was not until I was living away from my family, with roommates, that I realized some people don’t know the right way to do dishes. Their dishes might stay in the sink, unwashed, for days. And no matter how much passive/aggressive behaviour I exhibited, I couldn’t get some of my roommates to do dishes the right way at the correct time. Our basic framework for daily decision making was not the same. We had different ethics.
In the gospel reading, the sisters Martha and Mary clearly made different decisions. Martha opened her home to Jesus, and proceeded to provide hospitality. Mary, chose to sit and engage in relationship building. Why did they make these decisions?
How did you arrive at your framework for daily decision making? Well, you learned it, first from your family and your peers, from educational and religious communities, and from your experiences.
Maybe Martha was fulfilling a role in the family. She expected of herself the role of hostess. Mary, somewhere, had experienced that learning, or relationships, sometimes are more important than hospitality. Maybe she just thought jesus was hot and apparently single. The part of the story with which I resonate the most, is the desire for other people to have the same decision making framework that I do; to live from the same ethic. I get so annoyed when I have to be responsible and someone else gets to do easy stuff and have fun.
Sometimes we learn a new decision making framework based on our experiences. I’m a relative novice at using my cell phone for text messaging. On Friday I pulled into a gas station to fill up my truck, and after I parked, I sent a text to a friend asking if he was free for lunch in a few minutes. I was so distracted by the phone messaging task that I left the keys in the ignition, hopped out, locked the door, and swung it shut. It took fiddling with the truck for 15 mintues, a $5 taxi ride to retrieve a spare key, a 1 mile run back to the gas station before I was in my truck and driving again. My new framework for decision making probably includes not texting at gas stations. But I’ll have to wait a year or two to know for sure. Perhaps Mary was experimenting with a new behaviour, by sitting and talking to Jesus. Maybe she was in the process of learning if this is a good idea, or not.
I have a framework for decision making about my daily life. You have a framework. We have arrived at this framework through modeling, education, and experience. We also have a framework for decisions about work, career, major tasks, and making a difference in the world. Do you have any idea what your decision making framework is for the big stuff?
For some of the major dilemmas we might rely on words like the ones from Micah, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” However, that doesn’t seem to be useful in choosing courses of study, internships, jobs, career paths, employers and partners. And it doesn’t tell us whether or how to have children.
I think we arrive at the larger life decisions with a framework that we learned in the same way that we learned our framework for daily decision making, through family modeling, peer relationships, educational and religious communities, and our own experience. Maybe Martha ran a guest house. Maybe she was a professional hostess. Perhaps Mary was a career philosophy student. One of those people who was 35 and still working on her PhD and teaching a few courses at the local community college. Maybe Martha hired her sister to work at the guesthouse part time. Maybe Martha was frustrated, not just with the fact that Mary wasn’t helping in the kitchen today, but that she was on the wrong path altogether. Have you ever thought your sister or brother was on the wrong path?
But back to the question of careers, partners, and making a difference. Garison Keillor in his daily radio show “The Writers Almanac” ends with the simple admonition, “Be well, Do Good Work, and Keep in Touch.” In some ways, this seems to be a more practical path to doing daily life than the text from Micah. But we still must each decide how to be well, which good work to do, and how to keep in touch. For one answers I’m going to turn to gurus, books, and pop psychology.
(Pulled out of bag: Your Best Year Yet, Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Harold Benders The Anabaptist Vision, Phil Porter Having it All, Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, John Dewey, Herbert Stein, Warren Buffet, Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robin, Art Gish, Ron Sider, Living More With Less, Tracy Gary, Starhawk, Martyrs Mirror, the Bible, the Faerie Way, Friedman, The Path, and finally, Steven Covey.)
You may be familiar with Steven Covey who wrote the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” I have not studied his techniques extensively, nor do I consider myself a highly effective person. In fact, I’m convinced that if I practiced any of his advice, my life would be more effective. But there is one of his ideas which I find useful in this discussion. Covey lays out two ideas for the tasks we do in our lives then combines them in four possibilities. The variables are Urgent versus Not-Urgent. And Important versus Not-Important.
Some tasks are both Urgent and Important. These are things that have to get done today. Martha’s preparations for dinner which would be served at 6. Paying a bill by its due date, and many of our daily task. It’s urgent. It’s Important. it’s at the top of my to-do list.
Some tasks are Urgent, but not actually Important. When my cell phone rings, it interrupts whatever I am doing with it’s urgent demand. But seldom is the actual call of high importance. However, I answer it anyway. These tasks grab our attention, and we do them, whether we should or not, because they are urgent, even when they are not important.
Some tasks are not urgent, and they are not important. For some of us, television is not urgent, and not important, but we watch it anyway. Computer solitaire, piddling around, twiddling our thumbs, wasting time, puttering, tinkering, lollygagging, loitering. Like the proverbial Eskimos with numerous words for snow, we have numerous expressions for tasks in this category because we have them in abundance. We all have tasks which we know aren’t really important, and certainly aren’t urgent, but we do them anyway.
And finally, we get to the tasks that are important, but not urgent. These are the tasks we are most likely to overlook. They involve preparation, planning, prevention and relationships. I think Garison Keillor’s admonitions fall into this category. Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch. Take a walk. Get exercise. Create something. Write, Dream, Sing. Call someone. These are not urgent tasks. They can be put off until later. But they are so important. Mary’s decision to spend time with Jesus might be in this category. She didn’t NEED to do it, but it was important.
Steven Covey says that if we spend time doing these tasks, the ones that are not urgent, but clearly important, we will be on a path to greater effectiveness. And the place to find time for this, is by not doing tasks which are urgent, but not important. He doesn’t say take the time from tv watching, lollygagging, and loitering. He says take it from not getting caught by interruptions and other tasks that are urgent but actually unimportant. when it really doesn’t have to get done at all.
But how would anyone actually do this? How do people do the important stuff. How do they do what really matters?
I think there are two approaches. The one small step at a time approach or one big leap approach.
The first task in both approaches is to spend a little time figuring out what we really think is important in our lives. What really matters. What makes a difference.
Some people, after deciding what will make a difference, make a big leap for that dream. I think of Kinari and her health project in Indonesia. I think of Helen Stoltzfus launching an arts non-profit for kids. I think of VSers who give a year or two of their lives. I think of everyone who becomes a parent. These are all big leaps in the direction of doing things that really matter.
The second approach is to find the way to just spend a little time, on a regular basis, on one of the things you think is important. I find there are some structures that make this easier. Committees and boards which meet once a month let me show up, do a little work, and take a small step toward doing something that really matters. Volunteering for a community organization, or giving money to a worthy cause also fall in this category. I think everybody here is doing some of this.
Some of these little steps don’t fall into a regular structure, and those I find more challenging. Here are some more of mine that I wish I did regularly.
Remembering to take a walk through my neighborhood park twice a week. Calling my mother and father on Sunday afternoons. Smiling at strangers.
Today, during education hour, we will have a chance to talk with Kinari Webb about her life and work in Indonesia. I believe she is so clearly someone who has made a huge leap toward doing something that really matters.
Next week during education hour, I will be guiding a process to help focus our individual understanding of purpose using the book “The Path” by Laurie Beth Jones. If you participate next week you may arrive at a one sentence purpose statement. Here is mine.
My purpose is to structure and encourage creative expression in spiritual communities. I arrived at this purpose statement over the past 5 years. Originally it was twice as wordy as this version. When I look at my life, I see that perhaps 10% of my time is actually spent in this core purpose. The rest of my time is spent doing things I enjoy, and things that will make me money.
But knowing this is my purpose statement, sometimes helps guide my decisions about how to spend my time. Eight years ago, in my second year here at this church I was invited to join the retreat planning committee. At the time I didn’t really know why I said yes to such a job. But now I see how it is in line with my purpose. Three years ago when I was invited to help plan the annual church retreat for Metropolitan Community Church, I knew why I said yes. My purpose statement. Since I have articulated my purpose statement, it has become easier to say yes to opportunities that fall directly in line with the statement, and to know that they will bring me satisfaction. It is these tasks that make me feel like I am making a difference in the world. When I’m in line with my purpose, then what I am doing really matters.
And the more I am able to line up my own efforts with my purpose, the less I worry about whether other people are getting to have too much fun, or slacking off, or sitting and talking with Jesus while I’m making dinner. When I align with my purpose, I become more compassionate and more loving. I don’t know how this happens. I don’t know why it happens. But it does.
So I offer my ongoing commitment to engaging creatively with this community. I hope to hear your stories about doing what really matters. I want to know what makes a difference. And this
week, I want to be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
March 2, 2008
Luke 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
When you lie awake in the middle of the night, do you wonder if what you do makes a difference? Do you wonder if what you do really matters?
I know that every person in this room is making a difference. I know that you give time and money to projects and committees of this church, and many other organizations. But how do we decide which time we spend doing what tasks for ourselves, for our families, for our communities, and for the world? How do we decide when to make a difference? How do we decide what really matters?
We each have a default mechanism for making decisions. Most of the time, on most days, we are able to flow through life responding to the world around us, with constant thinking and decision making. But we don’t stop at each decision and analyze the specific dilemma in front of us, pull out our systematic theology, consult our astrologer, read the tea leaves, flip a coin, or roll some dice. If we did that at every decision, it would be sunset before we finished breakfast. The basic framework that we each use to efficiently make decisions is our own personal ethic.
In my family, when a meal was eaten, the next step was to wash the dishes, dry them, and put them away. It was not until I was living away from my family, with roommates, that I realized some people don’t know the right way to do dishes. Their dishes might stay in the sink, unwashed, for days. And no matter how much passive/aggressive behaviour I exhibited, I couldn’t get some of my roommates to do dishes the right way at the correct time. Our basic framework for daily decision making was not the same. We had different ethics.
In the gospel reading, the sisters Martha and Mary clearly made different decisions. Martha opened her home to Jesus, and proceeded to provide hospitality. Mary, chose to sit and engage in relationship building. Why did they make these decisions?
How did you arrive at your framework for daily decision making? Well, you learned it, first from your family and your peers, from educational and religious communities, and from your experiences.
Maybe Martha was fulfilling a role in the family. She expected of herself the role of hostess. Mary, somewhere, had experienced that learning, or relationships, sometimes are more important than hospitality. Maybe she just thought jesus was hot and apparently single. The part of the story with which I resonate the most, is the desire for other people to have the same decision making framework that I do; to live from the same ethic. I get so annoyed when I have to be responsible and someone else gets to do easy stuff and have fun.
Sometimes we learn a new decision making framework based on our experiences. I’m a relative novice at using my cell phone for text messaging. On Friday I pulled into a gas station to fill up my truck, and after I parked, I sent a text to a friend asking if he was free for lunch in a few minutes. I was so distracted by the phone messaging task that I left the keys in the ignition, hopped out, locked the door, and swung it shut. It took fiddling with the truck for 15 mintues, a $5 taxi ride to retrieve a spare key, a 1 mile run back to the gas station before I was in my truck and driving again. My new framework for decision making probably includes not texting at gas stations. But I’ll have to wait a year or two to know for sure. Perhaps Mary was experimenting with a new behaviour, by sitting and talking to Jesus. Maybe she was in the process of learning if this is a good idea, or not.
I have a framework for decision making about my daily life. You have a framework. We have arrived at this framework through modeling, education, and experience. We also have a framework for decisions about work, career, major tasks, and making a difference in the world. Do you have any idea what your decision making framework is for the big stuff?
For some of the major dilemmas we might rely on words like the ones from Micah, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” However, that doesn’t seem to be useful in choosing courses of study, internships, jobs, career paths, employers and partners. And it doesn’t tell us whether or how to have children.
I think we arrive at the larger life decisions with a framework that we learned in the same way that we learned our framework for daily decision making, through family modeling, peer relationships, educational and religious communities, and our own experience. Maybe Martha ran a guest house. Maybe she was a professional hostess. Perhaps Mary was a career philosophy student. One of those people who was 35 and still working on her PhD and teaching a few courses at the local community college. Maybe Martha hired her sister to work at the guesthouse part time. Maybe Martha was frustrated, not just with the fact that Mary wasn’t helping in the kitchen today, but that she was on the wrong path altogether. Have you ever thought your sister or brother was on the wrong path?
But back to the question of careers, partners, and making a difference. Garison Keillor in his daily radio show “The Writers Almanac” ends with the simple admonition, “Be well, Do Good Work, and Keep in Touch.” In some ways, this seems to be a more practical path to doing daily life than the text from Micah. But we still must each decide how to be well, which good work to do, and how to keep in touch. For one answers I’m going to turn to gurus, books, and pop psychology.
(Pulled out of bag: Your Best Year Yet, Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Harold Benders The Anabaptist Vision, Phil Porter Having it All, Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, John Dewey, Herbert Stein, Warren Buffet, Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robin, Art Gish, Ron Sider, Living More With Less, Tracy Gary, Starhawk, Martyrs Mirror, the Bible, the Faerie Way, Friedman, The Path, and finally, Steven Covey.)
You may be familiar with Steven Covey who wrote the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” I have not studied his techniques extensively, nor do I consider myself a highly effective person. In fact, I’m convinced that if I practiced any of his advice, my life would be more effective. But there is one of his ideas which I find useful in this discussion. Covey lays out two ideas for the tasks we do in our lives then combines them in four possibilities. The variables are Urgent versus Not-Urgent. And Important versus Not-Important.
Some tasks are both Urgent and Important. These are things that have to get done today. Martha’s preparations for dinner which would be served at 6. Paying a bill by its due date, and many of our daily task. It’s urgent. It’s Important. it’s at the top of my to-do list.
Some tasks are Urgent, but not actually Important. When my cell phone rings, it interrupts whatever I am doing with it’s urgent demand. But seldom is the actual call of high importance. However, I answer it anyway. These tasks grab our attention, and we do them, whether we should or not, because they are urgent, even when they are not important.
Some tasks are not urgent, and they are not important. For some of us, television is not urgent, and not important, but we watch it anyway. Computer solitaire, piddling around, twiddling our thumbs, wasting time, puttering, tinkering, lollygagging, loitering. Like the proverbial Eskimos with numerous words for snow, we have numerous expressions for tasks in this category because we have them in abundance. We all have tasks which we know aren’t really important, and certainly aren’t urgent, but we do them anyway.
And finally, we get to the tasks that are important, but not urgent. These are the tasks we are most likely to overlook. They involve preparation, planning, prevention and relationships. I think Garison Keillor’s admonitions fall into this category. Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch. Take a walk. Get exercise. Create something. Write, Dream, Sing. Call someone. These are not urgent tasks. They can be put off until later. But they are so important. Mary’s decision to spend time with Jesus might be in this category. She didn’t NEED to do it, but it was important.
Steven Covey says that if we spend time doing these tasks, the ones that are not urgent, but clearly important, we will be on a path to greater effectiveness. And the place to find time for this, is by not doing tasks which are urgent, but not important. He doesn’t say take the time from tv watching, lollygagging, and loitering. He says take it from not getting caught by interruptions and other tasks that are urgent but actually unimportant. when it really doesn’t have to get done at all.
But how would anyone actually do this? How do people do the important stuff. How do they do what really matters?
I think there are two approaches. The one small step at a time approach or one big leap approach.
The first task in both approaches is to spend a little time figuring out what we really think is important in our lives. What really matters. What makes a difference.
Some people, after deciding what will make a difference, make a big leap for that dream. I think of Kinari and her health project in Indonesia. I think of Helen Stoltzfus launching an arts non-profit for kids. I think of VSers who give a year or two of their lives. I think of everyone who becomes a parent. These are all big leaps in the direction of doing things that really matter.
The second approach is to find the way to just spend a little time, on a regular basis, on one of the things you think is important. I find there are some structures that make this easier. Committees and boards which meet once a month let me show up, do a little work, and take a small step toward doing something that really matters. Volunteering for a community organization, or giving money to a worthy cause also fall in this category. I think everybody here is doing some of this.
Some of these little steps don’t fall into a regular structure, and those I find more challenging. Here are some more of mine that I wish I did regularly.
Remembering to take a walk through my neighborhood park twice a week. Calling my mother and father on Sunday afternoons. Smiling at strangers.
Today, during education hour, we will have a chance to talk with Kinari Webb about her life and work in Indonesia. I believe she is so clearly someone who has made a huge leap toward doing something that really matters.
Next week during education hour, I will be guiding a process to help focus our individual understanding of purpose using the book “The Path” by Laurie Beth Jones. If you participate next week you may arrive at a one sentence purpose statement. Here is mine.
My purpose is to structure and encourage creative expression in spiritual communities. I arrived at this purpose statement over the past 5 years. Originally it was twice as wordy as this version. When I look at my life, I see that perhaps 10% of my time is actually spent in this core purpose. The rest of my time is spent doing things I enjoy, and things that will make me money.
But knowing this is my purpose statement, sometimes helps guide my decisions about how to spend my time. Eight years ago, in my second year here at this church I was invited to join the retreat planning committee. At the time I didn’t really know why I said yes to such a job. But now I see how it is in line with my purpose. Three years ago when I was invited to help plan the annual church retreat for Metropolitan Community Church, I knew why I said yes. My purpose statement. Since I have articulated my purpose statement, it has become easier to say yes to opportunities that fall directly in line with the statement, and to know that they will bring me satisfaction. It is these tasks that make me feel like I am making a difference in the world. When I’m in line with my purpose, then what I am doing really matters.
And the more I am able to line up my own efforts with my purpose, the less I worry about whether other people are getting to have too much fun, or slacking off, or sitting and talking with Jesus while I’m making dinner. When I align with my purpose, I become more compassionate and more loving. I don’t know how this happens. I don’t know why it happens. But it does.
So I offer my ongoing commitment to engaging creatively with this community. I hope to hear your stories about doing what really matters. I want to know what makes a difference. And this
week, I want to be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
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