Kenya, Brutality Update

I got another email today from our friends who are handing out food during the Kenya crisis. I have not been updating with each email, but suffice it to say these brave people risk themselves hourly to save lives with the food they deliver, and encourage the suffering with their words of love.

This email told the story of a family carrying the brutally murdered body of their relative to bury him. The car was stopped by a the gang who committed the murder, who asked what they were doing. The driver said:

"Taking our family member to be buried because those who normally do this are too busy with all the deaths".
The gang replied "say the last prayer, you are going to join them." When they had spoken this they poured fuel over the car and burned the family and the body down to the asphalt.

The letter continues with stories of Christian pastors planning to burn down churches where opposing tribe members have taken their families for safety.

This church is one of the Assembly of God churches we visited in a Nairobi slum. I am not sure if it has been burned. Can you imagine nailing shut the doors and setting it alight? Or, sitting on the floor, comforting your children as the enraged crowd gathers outside? Or maybe you are the pastor, finding spots for each family on the floor of the church - unaware that you are settling them into what will be their graves.

These stories of Christian on Christian violence remind me of a conversation I had in Ethiopia. I sat for lunch with the custodian of the hospital in Soddo and asked him how he ended up working there. He told me he had lived in Shashamane, the city where Jamaican Rastafarians live in Ethiopia. There, he worked at a university. He wistfully described his big house and nice job. Then one day, an envelope appeared, half slid under his front door. The letter inside informed him that he had one month to vacate the city. If he stayed longer, he would be shot. The local tribe did not want him or his family there.
"Were they Muslim?" I asked.
"No. They are Seventh Day Adventists."
We continued talking about the tribal issues, and I asked him if he wanted a coffee.
"I don't drink coffee," he said, "I'm a Seventh Day Adventist."

To do, or not to do

In keeping with my recent meditation on un-complicating my life in order to live it, I’ve been listening to some of Doug’s sermons on line.

I am a big proponent of the “to do” list. Up until a recent paper purge, I had to do lists dating back to sixth grade. Scores of hand drawn check boxes next to a myriad of essential tasks. I considered making an art project out of them, but I didn’t want to add it to the current list. I’ve actually missed them since throwing them out, which I find symptomatic of an un-yet-realized something, perhaps something serious.


Doug says: “We need to step away from the supposition that ultimacy is found in our “to do” list – of getting stuff done so now we can move on to real life.” He encourages his listeners to live in the now and “tap into God, pursuing the eternal, awakening ourselves to the always-ness of eternal time.”

I experience now-ness when I shoot, especially in documentary situations. Time slips, my fractured awareness unifies and hones in on what is present. It is energizing. Doug talks about times like these and how though they may be an aberration to us, but truly they are what God calls us to.

“The fulfilling parts of life, like deep community, and energy exploding spirituality, the deeply fulfilling experience of divine love and the deep fulfillment of love among spiritual friends gets missed because our lives are just too complicated.”

I think I will listen to this again. Maybe my goal this year will be to disengage from my to do list. I’m having with drawls just considering it.

Doug’s series “Awakened to the Dance” may be found here
Quotes taken from sermon: Awakened to the Dance: Uncomplicating Our Lives (part 3)

accomplish it?

Daily I ask myself, "why can't I seem to accomplish more?" to impact the world, to get rid of stuff, to forward projects, to write a book, to do things with my kids . . .

My dad is going through some coaching right now and addressing some issues, not surprisingly, similar to my own. He sent me this (3rd graph REALLY resonated):

Learning

I find myself
In a difficult place
The pressures of life
Not keeping place

With all I know
Of the nature of man
My own life seems
Out of hand

How do I order
The things that I know
To reframe the world
To get up and go

Some is with skills
Faster and better
Learn how to do it
Get good at the letter

Some is by seeing
And changing the rules
What governs my life
At times I can choose

Some is with being
The who that I am
Transforming my role
In this scheme that’s so grand

These three talk of me
And my role
And my place
Where do I fit
What do I embrace

But the who that I am
Is related to you
The system I’m in
Bumps your system too

I suspect that these loops
Go on for ever
Well beyond
My mental endeavors

But change we will
As time goes on
To find a place
Serene and calm

To find that place
Where each one fits
A perfect match
For all our gifts…

©12/20/07, Glenn Mehltretter
You can read more of my dad's poems on his personal blog. Or, check out his work in human capacity at peoplefit. They are in the process of updating the look of the site, so try back if you don't get in.

Blessed Nation?

In Psalms 37:25, it is recorded that David, the King of Israel said, I was young, and now I'm old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread.

I've always considered this scripture a promise rather than a statement of someones observation. The other night Stephanie told me about a father who brought four of his kids to the orphanage. All were very hard of hearing or completely deaf. The oldest were in their late teens, so adoption really was not plausible. The family was obviously close to one another and to the Lord. But, the father was worried about his kids, who were ostrasized and abused in their village. He wanted more for them. They had managed as a family to send two of the children to a deaf school, and these two kids had taught the others sign language.

I thought about it long after she told me the story and this scripture came to mind. The next day, we went to visit Dr. Mary. I mentioned the scripture to her and she said fiercely, that verse should not be in the Bible. That, or it is just David's observation. It is simply not true.

Then she described the story of a poor, Christian mother. There are thousands here like her. She lives in a dirt hut where the roof leaks. The floor becomes mud in the rainy season, and she has no furniture. So, she spends the nights holding her children up, out of the water. In the morning, she is soaked to the core, muddy and very cold. But, she has no change of clothing, so to wash herself, she must go the fridgid river waters and wash her clothing while she wears it. Then, she must go, wet, and search for work to order to buy flour. Then she must find wood and light it in the rain to bake bread her food for her family. She is not dry or warm for months.

I have grown up hearing that the United States is blessed because in our early roots, we are a Christian nation. Ethiopia's roots are the same, only older. From Jewish to Christian, this is a country founded on faith in God. So, why is she not blessed the way we are blessed? I question now, is blessing equal to financial success? Are we somehow better than the people here so God chooses to give to us?


Often when I walk here, I think it must be so much like walking in the context of Biblical times. The culture is emotional, and respect for proper heirarchy considered very important. I can imagine two women fighting over a child, and one woman agreeing the child should be split. I can see why goats and sheep need to be separated, because they look alike. I can picture shaking the dust of a town from your feet, or washing someone's feet out of love for them.

"Cry out to Me and I will answer" says God in another scripture.

My young translator told me a story from his youth. "I was on my own from the time I was six years old because my parents did not have enough food. I had some torn clothes, and I was embarrassed because they did not cover me. One day I was so cold becuase of the rain, I said, God, please help me find some clothes. I had the feeling to walk straight down this road. A man came out of his house and said to me, "you look cold. Please, go down to the building on this street, they are giving clothes." God provided for me clothes that day."