Let us get up then, at long last, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep. Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts.
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I’m not a calvinist and I still love this video. Personally, I’d rename it ‘The Christian,’ but I’m not John Piper.
“Because white congregations in America have so often intellectualized faith and individualized our relationship with God, people who are hungry for community and drawn to justice movements are usually white. So we find ourselves trying to learn how to be the people of God with other white folks a lot of the time. The trouble with this isn’t just that we end up reproducing communities marked by racial division (though this is something that troubles us deeply). We also continue to suffer the deficiencies of white theology.”
– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers
Canticle of Brother Son
by St. Francis of Assisi
Most high, all-powerful,
all good, Lord!
All praise is yours,
all glory, all honour,
and all blessing.
To you alone, Most High,
do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through all that you have made,
and first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day;
and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful is he,
how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High,
he bears the likeness.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them,
bright and precious and fair.
All praise be yours, My Lord,
through Brothers Wind and Air,
and fair and stormy,
all the weather’s moods,
by which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Water,
so useful, lowly, precious,
and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Brother Fire,
THrough whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how gay!
Full of power and strength.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
various fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through those who grant pardon for love of you;
through those who endure sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
by you, Most High,
they will be crowned.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Sister Death,
from whose embrace no mortal can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing your will!
The second death can do no harm to them.
Praise and bless my Lord,
and give him thanks,
and serve him with great humility.
My friend Nikole Lim, an incredible photographer and founder of Freely in Hope, recently did an interview over at Red Letter Christians. She’s a better photographer, communicator, and straight better person than I’ll probably ever be and she got me thinking.
When I first found out that I was going to be CURE‘s photographer in Zambia (technical title is CUREkids Coordinator), my ignorant self was half expecting to be taking photos of snotty nosed little kids on the verge of tears while covered in flies (I warned you I was ignorant). You gotta pull at people’s heart strings to make them want to donate. Right? But what Nikole so aptly points out is that photos like these not only deny the subjects worth and shatter their dignity, but also give us, “the consumer,” an un-holy sense of privilege, fortune, and dignity not because of what we’ve accomplished, but because of how low we view others.
So yeah, I won’t take these kinds of photos. This said, working at CURE Zambia makes it easy not to take these photos (as the temptation will always be there thanks to my cultural conditioning). Sure, some of my kids are indeed covered with flies, but it’s because they’re smelly little buggers who would much rather be running around, getting up to shenanigans than be caught by their parents and bathed. These kids come to us with some of the craziest disabilities from legs that look like tentacles beneath the knee to heads swollen larger than their bodies and, somehow, they still have fantastic outlooks on life. An insanely rough life of discrimination and judgement has taught my little friends how to find joy in the tiniest of things. So yes, we can and should be helping these kids, but forget this better-than-thou, prideful air of privilege, fortune, and dignity. My kids have had a rough life that we’re trying to work with them to improve, but they’re far from miserable. In fact, we can learn a thing or two from them. Things about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We may have the resources and knowledge required to heal their bodies, but these kids might just have the insight and understanding required to heal our souls.
Excerpts from ‘Becoming the Answers to Our Prayers’ III
by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
“The moment we are no longer tempted by the “pots of meat” the empire offers, we should be concerned—for if we can’t feel the temptation, we have probably given in to it.”
“Living in community allows us to know people well enough to see the work they have to do to meet their basic needs. Loving in community often looks like choosing to do someone’s dirty work for them.”
“Many people look at the empty cathedrals in Europe and wonder if our megachurches will become museums in the next generation.”
“(W)e should pray that we would become the sort of people who are safe for God to trust with miracles. We must become people who will not exploit or market or pervert the power of the Spirit. We must become people who get out of the way of God.”
“(W)e need to pray like everything depends on God and live like God has no other plan but the church.”
Radiating Christ
Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus!
Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus, will be all from you, none of it will be ours; it will be you, shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do.
The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.
Amen
“Throughout the history of the church, Christians have recognized that we cannot pray “Our father” together on Sunday and deny bread to our brothers and sisters on Monday. But we live in difficult days. The hungry are not just hungry. Often they are also our enemies. Drug addiction and mental illness make many who are hungry hard to deal with. They threaten us. Others have been hungry for so long that they are angry, even at those of us who want to help. We worry about how to protect ourselves from them while at the same time feeling guilty for our complicity in their poverty. So we give to charities. And charities become the brokers for our compassion toward the poor. The problem with this is that we never get to know the poor. Though we have been made children of God together with them in Jesus Christ, we never sit down to eat with our hungry brothers and sisters. We never hear their stories. We never learn to see the world through their eyes”
– Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers
Turkey Alwan Travels