A Savior to You

And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 
'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.'

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.'

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

Luke 2:8-18 (NIV)

It's the Christmas story, all right.  Or, I guess for arguments sake, it is the Christian's story.  As discussed ad nauseum, much of the Western world recognizes the holiday that is Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa, but not everyone celebrates it.  Some tolerate the intrusion that the Savior has in the world; others are adamantly against it.  Some would say the story of Christ's birth is a blue time of year, that because something dreadful has happened in their lives, nothing can bring joy to the Yule.  With each passing year of the inculturation of Christmas and the excision of spiritual meaning from it, we find that the day becomes a gluttonous consumer orgy of shredding wrapping paper and overeating.  The blue part of Christmas, for me, is that the angel's message has been pruned of joy; instead of a proclamation that the Savior of the world has come for you (plural), we find an announcement of commercial frenzy.  Once the presents are unwrapped, we find an emptiness because God's presence is, unfortunately, left undiscovered.

Which is why I really, really, enjoy the shepherds' story.  They are, if you will, the first Christ-ian converts.  Think about it:

For centuries, the people of Israel had been bereft of hope and joy because they had been acclimatized to living in the bondage to foreign invaders.  Whether Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks or Romans, these middle eastern Semites had known only alien rule.  My guess is that all of the Israelites, young or old, would gladly have opened the gift of the Messiah that dark night.  He came when they least expected - the Romans, just like every other conquering country, gave them a small amount of control, in this case Herod and his family.  The Israelites would have dreamed of the day when the Messiah wandered in from the wilderness, like their contemporary version of Moses, overthrown the Philistines and set up rule in Jerusalem.  

These shepherds, and presumably Israelites, (we're not told how old they are, but in my mind they've always been young, but my guess is that's not necessarily true), were tediously doing their jobs minding their flocks. And it was nighttime which could have been boring and, at times, scary.  Any noise might have thrown them off; a lack of noise might have sent them off to sleep - certainly a fine line between alertness and asleepness.

Then suddenly an angel appears - from where they don't know, but it is definitely out of the ordinary to have a messenger from God show up in the meadows at night.  So the angel, the messenger, delivers the message of good news (the gospel) to the shepherds first: Not (and I hold up a finger to stress the point) the wealthy businessmen or doctors or lawyers or movie stars or pop stars or even pastors for that matter, but to those who held the lowliest of jobs; those who weren't even able to have a roof over their heads.

And the good news, the gospel preached to them from above their heads, from on high, from the radiant light and voice of God, good news that will bring joy from the chasm of misery, sorrow and hopelessness:  Today, in the town of David (somehow the shepherds already knew this was Bethlehem) a Savior has been born to you ----- and it's plural, which we don't read in English.  Usually, we read the soteriological, (salvation's) story from the the unique perspective of the individual, but the gospel is brought to the masses in the plural, or in the translated deep south "A Savior has been born to y'all y'alls."  

Far too often we believe that this salvation is a private, personal thing, that Jesus' life, death and resurrection was for me, that Jesus loves me this I know - but the very first message is that God has come for everyone.  The one born is the Messiah, the Lord.  The anointed one.  The King.  The Prince of Peace.  The Son of Righteousness.  You know the synonyms - For Us.  

The shepherds do not react with how, perhaps, the wealthy businessmen would have reacted:  "What will it cost?"

Or the doctors, "Certainly there is a logical, or psychological explanation, for an appearance by these 'messengers from God.'"

Or the lawyers, "Does the holy family need a court representative for the living conditions that they've been put in?  Do we need to talk to the carpenter's union?"

Or the movie stars, "There's only one star here - and that's me."

Or the pop stars, "Can we sing 'O Holy Night' one more time so I can hold the high note and you can be impressed?"

Or even the pastors, "There has to be some kind of theological explanation why God would not arrive to the learned brethren."

But even the pastors have to be impressed by the faith of the shepherds - they leave their livelihood, follow their Sunday School understanding of the scriptures, hurry to Bethlehem, all because they believe what they had heard.

The scriptures do not use any words like, "The shepherds were considered righteous in God's eyes so he came to them first," or "The shepherds went to church every week in order to be the first to be worthy of the words of grace," or "The shepherds invited Jesus into their hearts and then they were ready to run off and see this great thing that had happened."

That's the beauty of this story; the fact that it is all God's doing - the salvation is HIs and there is no scriptural evidence that the shepherds had to do anything at all which includes accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior before the Savior actually did the saving.  God's grace was devoid of any prior holy rolling or acting by humankind.  None were worthy.

That's the good news at Christmas:  We believe because we hear.  So, we tell what we've been told.  And in doing so, Christmas (the arrival of Christ in enemy occupied territory) becomes a daily event.

A Savior has been born to you and you and you, and although it would be much easier to believe that somehow we have a hand in our own salvation, working towards being 'really good', that's not the way it happens.  

It's all God's doing.

This good news should cause great joy in you today, for a child has been born for you... A Savior.

Give it Back

Like a good Facebook fisherman, I've been trolling through the posts casting out my own nets, sifting through the digital detritus in an attempt to figure out what is important in the collective world psyche in the Year of Our Lord, 2015. 

We spend a lot of time re-posting funny videos of dogs and cats.
We spend a lot of time trying to decide how to view the Muslim religion.
We spend a lot of time attempting to look more beautiful.
We spend a lot of time putting people down.
We spend a lot of time deciding which politician is the worst.
By 'liking' things, we substitute social perusal for actual relationship.

Lastly, Christians spend an inordinate amount of time trying to 'reclaim' Christmas from the so-called 'secular' world.

It's the last one that I'd like to focus on for, probably, the last post of the year. 

If we were to put a token into a time machine and travel back to the arbitrary year of 300 (or even 600, 900 or 1,200) A. D., I think that we'd find a different understanding about Christmas.  According to scholars, the early Christian church had three main holidays.  They were, in order of occurrence in the year, not in significance: Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost.  Notice, in the large scheme of things, there was no importance placed on Christmas.  Why was that?

Christmas, as hopefully most Christians know, began as a pagan holiday, a festival for the longest day of the year and the return of the light, and then Christianity, in order to prove its superiority, subsumed the pagan festival and turned it into Christmas.  (They did the same with some of the pagan worship sites also.  They actually built the church over the pagan churches.)  In essence, Christmas swallowed the pagan festival.  The symbolism is obvious and it made sense at the time.  In order to teach the pagan culture and the traditions of the time about the Light that has come into the world, the Christian leadership wagged its finger at the pagans and said, 'Let us tell you about the true God that came as a baby.'  But as the years have gone on, even in the last century, that Christian message of Christmas has actually started to be swallowed by paganism again.  This time, the pagan god is called 'materialism' and it is a powerful idol seemingly imbuing the worshiper with strength to overcome any anxiety they encounter in life, especially the 'idea' of sin and the impending understanding of death.  This pagan 'god' is a tsunamic force in our 21st century culture and in some ways what I'm thinking, and about to propose, might cause some tension. 

But really, who am I but one more blogger in an ocean of blogsites.

As I reflect on the tidal wave of consumerism and advertising that destroys the irenic coastlines of our lives, I think to myself:  "Give it back."

Why not give Christmas back to the pagans?  Why not let them have the holiday for avarice and greed; of gluttony and pride?  Let them call it 'X-mas' or 'happy holidays' or whatever replacement that is out there in an attempt to not actually speak the name of Christ.  My thinking is this:  Is it really helping for Christians to batter their collective hands against the closed door of corporate greed?  Do we not actually turn people away because of our pietistic railing against something that most people really desire?  Why not the same righteous indignation over Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost? 

So, I see the collective, shrinking Christian community battling against something that really isn't that important.  What I mean by that is, the ancient Christian church put no large emphasis on the birth of Christ other than that of its miraculous nature.  Paul places significance on Jesus' birth; Peter does not speak of it; the epistle writers don't even mention it. 

All of the strength of ancient Christians' argument for Christ has nothing to do with his birth and everything to do with his death and resurrection, which makes me wonder why we are so bent out of shape about Christmas sinking into the consumeristic hole at the end of December.

I say, "Give it Back."

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity writes this: 

"Enemy-occupied territory  -  that is what this world is.  Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.  When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going.  He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery."

How many times does this play out in our 21st century Christian culture?  We presume that recipe for the contemporary Christian life has significant portions of the ingredients of conceit (in the form of superiority over those 'unsaved' people) in laziness (if I just tell people that I will pray for them, that is all that God really needs me to do) and intellectual snobbery (Let me tell you why my understanding of Christ is unlimited in the way that it gives me power over you).  When we attempt to 'take back' Christmas, we actually reconstruct the wall that Christ tore down at his death and resurrection.  We tell people who, while becoming at least partially subservient to a culture of consumerism, that they are sinners if they don't recognize the Christ of Christmas. We attend church, the listening in to the secret wireless, for the second or third time during the year because it's socially acceptable to do so; and we build up, brick by brick, a barrier between 'us' and 'them,' which, in essence, is the biggest problem of all, because whether we admit it or not, we see the 'non-Christian' as the enemy, not the true enemy - as Luther puts it, the devil and all his empty promises.

We, as Christians, can give up the necessity to feel like we need to protect 'Christmas' and do what Lewis calls the 'campaign of sabotage' not by railing against misunderstandings of the meaning of Christmas, but by being enemy agents against Satan by reclaiming God's children through the love that came down at Christmas, the light that came into the world (Epiphany). 

I say, "Give it back."  Enjoy the festive celebrations, and if your own piety allows you to experience Christ at Christmas, you are truly blessed because the Light that came into the world illuminates everything.  Go to church on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, or the Sunday after and listen in to God's plan for the world as he came to us in disguise. 

Enjoy listening to the battle plan for God's will in our lives.

Merry Christmas.

Advent IV - The Wishing

For the first decade or so of my life, Santa's list was quite important to me.  For the weeks before Christmas, I would scribble furiously, etch out, erase, copy from other lists - there was no wish too big, but quite a few too small.  Frankly, I think my list was lost somewhere in the U.S. postal system, or else the North Pole system, because Santa always mixed my list up with someone else; someone entirely bereft of underwear and socks. 

Oh well, part of Christmas is wishing for something different in life and it's not just about the materialistic cravings which we constantly feed, or at least the older I get it seems that way; it's the feeling the life can be different.  As I think about the things that I wish for this year, I ponder that first Christmas and imagine Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph and Mary having a discussion about the things that they wished for.  Here is a brief, made up dialogue which I have concocted in my own head regarding the first fifty-five verses of Luke.

(At Liz and Zech's house, the doorbell rings - I know, it is anachronistic to put a doorbell in, but it feels good to have it.)

Liz:  (wiping her hands on the dish towel)  Who is it?
Mary:  It's your cousin, Mary.  (they shriek with delight - Liz opens the door and embraces Mary.) 
Liz:  Oh, it's so good to see you (she raises Mary's arms out to the side) You're looking fit.  Been to the gym lately?
Mary:  (blushes) There's just no time.  With Joe at the shop all day, the washing to be done, the cabinets to be dusted - oh, that dust here in the Middle East!  (Joe is loitering behind her)  Come over here, Joseph, meet my cousin Liz.  (they smile awkwardly)
Liz (grabbing Mary by the arm and pulling her into the kitchen but speaks over her shoulder)  Joe, make yourself at home - I think my husband Zech is just back from Temple.  I hear the trumpeters were a little off today; some problems with this contemporary music.  Can you believe it?  They want to get rid of the drums, and have more chanting?  How ridiculous.  I'm going to go to the traditional service, the early one, where all the old people are.  (sits Mary down at the table and goes to make some tea)  Listen to me ramble, Mary.  Tell me how things are going?  You've got a new... (wiggles her eyebrows and smiles).
Mary:  Yes, our fathers picked us out for each other.  We're engaged, but... (she paused) that's not the end of it.
Liz:  (lowering her voice) Do tell.
Mary:  I... uh... I don't know how to tell this without sounding crazy, but...
Liz:  Joe doesn't have six fingers on each hand, does he?  (Mary laughs nervously)
Mary:  A few nights ago, while Joe was in the shop finishing some rocking chairs for the Roman counsel, an angel came to me...
Liz:  That's amazing!  What did it look like?
Mary:  It looked a lot like Fabious, the Roman gladiator, but much scarier.
Liz:  What did the angel say?
Mary:  (swallows)  He said "Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you!"
Liz:  Wow!
Mary:  I've always known that God is around the edges of my life; certain circumstances where life seemed different - thin, almost translucent - is the best way to describe it.  I've never experienced anything like this and then to be greeted with 'Highly favored one!" that's crazy, right?
Liz:  (Liz nods) Yes.  Crazy.
Mary:  There's nothing favorable about me.  I'm just a teenager, I haven't really done anything; my family is not necessarily poor, but we aren't wealthy.  I don't have many talents other than I'm a pretty good singer.
Liz:  Tell me about it.
Mary:  But then he says this, "Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will have no end."
Liz:  (quiet for a moment, but then a smile spreads over her face.)  You're right, Mary, it sounds crazy.  But there is something welling up inside me, some strange emotion that I cannot put a finger on, something that is telling me to let go and sing!  You know, almost like one of those musicals they've been putting on down at the theatre. I think the newest one is called Les Happy Ones.  God does miracles even today!  For all these years, I've wished to have a child.  Now I've got one! A wish is a dangerous thing, don't you think?
Mary:  But I never wished for this!  It's like I'm setting myself up for a death sentence.  When people find out, they'll stone me, or at the very least, shame me until I have no part of the community.  What will Joseph say?  What will my parents say?
Liz:  You haven't told Joe yet?
Mary:  I couldn't.  I don't know how to bring it up.   He's caring and considerate, he treats me with gentleness, but we hardly know each other.  How do you tell someone you're engaged to:  Honey, can we sit down and have a little chat?  I know that we're new to this relationship and all, but something's come up in my life that will change things a little bit.
Liz:  Yes, and then throw in an angel, an overshadowing by the Spirit and a pregnancy... Oooh (she grabs her belly) my child just leapt within me! It must be a sign!  (starts singing a la operatic style)  "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
Mary:  What are you doing?
Liz:  Singing!  I can't help it!
Mary:  Let me try.  My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
Liz:  That was magnificent!
Mary:  Thank you, but my one wish this Hanukah is to have Joe believe me.
Liz:  When you open yourself to God's will, God always makes a way.  (She smiles)  How wonderful to see you...

People don't talk this way anymore, I know.  This partially made up dialogue interspersed with twenty-first century fears and doubts is, by and large, an example of how dreams are often expressed.  Wishes are couched in terms of anxiety about what we may miss out if our wishes are actually granted.  For instance, if I wish for a car for Christmas, will I miss out on a sleeping bag?  When we wish for the savior to be born, we automatically think about the things that might have to be sacrificed:  if I encounter Jesus as Savior, I will have to give up a lifestyle, perhaps decadent, perhaps prudish and not centered on love; perhaps I will have to give up those things that distract from the greater good of the people around me. 

But the reality of the Christ wish is not that it we who are sacrificing, but it is God who is sacrificing.  In our wishing, we actually are imagining that we receive something that is missing.  When we wish for Christ's peace this Christmas, it does not mean that we lose out on everything else, it only means that we are transformed, like Mary, from an instrument of waiting to an instrument of God's song in Christ. 

Both Elizabeth and Mary could not help singing, something which doesn't happen as much nowadays.  We listen to the 'stars' of music; we plug our earphones in and are captured by digitally enhanced sound waves, but there is a certain beauty to the un-amplified human voice that makes the darkest soul tremble, even if it is not professional quality.  I have no idea what either Elizabeth's or Mary's voices were like, whether they were like Taylor Swift's or Taylor Slow's.  In this case it doesn't matter, because it is in the lyric of the Magnificat that we find all the joy that the world will need.  No matter how long we have been waiting, or for what we've been waiting, here has come our Immanuel.  God with us. 

This Christmas, as you write out your Christmas list, whether to Santa or some other professional gift buyer in your family, think about what you wish that God would do in your life this year.  How will God unwrap your heart?  How will the Christ child enter in?

What will you wish for?

Advent III - The Watching

It must be almost ten years since my Grandpa Matthias made the Christmas crèche for us.  Made out of rough timber, about two feet wide and a foot tall, the crèche always sits in a place of prominence in our home during Advent.  My grandma painted all of the figurines.  Of course there is the holy family; Jesus an only child lying in a bed of painted straw, mostly naked except for a modestly wrapped cloth diaper around his waist.  I guess Mary was washing the swaddling clothes at the time.  Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and especially the wise men, are wearing incredible amounts of linen.  The magi must have come from a place of warmth because they look really cold shivering beside their cows.

Oh, yes, the camels are parked in the back.  The shepherds take care of them as well as a few of the frolicking sheep, but the cows seem content to be leading the Ancient Stargazers to the place where Jesus lay.  There is an angel, a beautiful cherub in a blue dress, pinioned to front of the wooden stable, affixed by a single nail in its back.  I'm sure she loves to hang their, suspended by the spike singing songs of great joy about how her back is killing her.  Sometimes, though, the angel flutters down on translucent wings to rest ever so gently on the back of the donkey which has its legs folded under it just trying to get any sleep.  So much racket going on with all these heavily dressed people, an infant baby, Magi-bearing cows and snorting camels.

Silent night, my ass.  (donkey speaking here)

It's the beauty of the crèche, though, that we can manipulate the characters to play whatever role we want.  Sometimes one of the shepherds fills in to babysit the infant savior while Joseph and Mary go on their first date as parents.  The camels, permanently reposed, have angel dust (not the hallucinogenic drug) sprinkled on them so they can fly to Never Never Land.  Sometimes the wise men have to leave for a Professional Development class, i.e. go outside to gaze at the stars and see what they're going to have for dinner.  It's all part of the wonder of what we used to do as kids, to place ourselves in dolls, or toys, or imaginations and make believe...

To make us believe.  To make us believe the Advent message we sometimes manipulate the characters of the Christmas story to fit our own ideas of what faith should be like.  We watch, or stand guard over the figures of the Advent story, or our version of it, so that Jesus sleeps peacefully - he would never cry, he's perfect.  His mother is perpetually watching him because she's not tired at all.  After giving birth to the baby (which in our crèche makes the baby look like he is thirty-eight pounds), Mary assumes the holy position, hands pushed tightly together in front of her, head bowed treasuring the beauty of childbirth in a stable. 

Yeah, right.

The wise men are really intelligent men who have watched the stars and yet have somehow have been unable to watch the one, great big moving star that settled over Bethlehem.  They, in all their intelligence, go to ask the king where the newborn king has been brought into the world.  The shepherds, watching their flocks by night, (who knows what they were actually doing at that time of day) have been permanently transposed into joyous young boys capably adept at jumping and springing for joy at being released from their full time job of keeping their sheep safe. 

I wonder if the sheep were alive when they returned?

But my own watching over the Christmas crèche and my own vision of its story is skewed a little bit, I think I like to manipulate the Christmas figures to bend to my will.  Joseph and Mary will never suffer hardship, the baby Jesus no crying he makes, the angel sings praises to God and hangs delightedly above the stable and the animals.  The manger is filled with fresh, fragrant straw and always will be and the wise men are perpetually wise and love to drop their Christmas gifts and run.

I'm almost positive that's not the way it happened, but one figure who gets changed in my own brain most of the time is John the Baptist.  We talk about him every Advent, the one who brings the good news of peace on earth and goodwill to men.  His message, as I manipulate it, is one of tolerance and good wishes at Christmas time, never mind the fact that in his preparation for the Christ, his first words out of his mouth are:

You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our Father."  (Luke 3:7)

In other words, to the crowds who flock to the Baptist, he does not promote tolerance for sin and selfish acts; he does not cozy up to the adoration of the multitudes, he offends them, as the gospel always seems to do.  It does no good to make people feel good about themselves, when in themselves there is nothing good.  They have made themselves righteous by claiming Abraham as their father, that somehow his inherent faithfulness is passed on in the righteous gene, and somehow have been deluded that faith comes through birth and is not deceived through disbelieving actions.  John speaks to a crowd of people who could have been his biggest supporters, could have made him a big deal in the temple just like his father, but he cuts right through it to the very heart of his message:

Repent.  Turn around, quickly!  The kingdom of God is at hand!  If you don't look up from yourselves and your addiction to ego, you'll miss him!  He is not saying this to anger them, although it probably did, but he cares about the efficacy of the Good News and how hard hearts tend to be a difficult barrier for the Gospel to break through.

What should we do, then?  It's interesting the crowd that asks this, because I often place myself in the crowds in biblical stories.  Included in the mob are faithful Israelites, tax collectors and soldiers, the latter to groups often looked upon with disdain, but John doesn't turn them away and he doesn't change the message in order to get them to 'come to Jesus.'  The message is the same; the only difference is the depth of the ears and hearts receiving them, and for tax collectors and soldiers, it's a miracle that they even listen at all because John's message basically is this -

Erase what you've learned about gathering 'stuff' and its importance in your life.  To the crowd he says, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.  To the tax collectors who call him 'Teacher,' Don't collect anymore than your job requires you.  You don't need any more to make it through life, especially if it means robbing others.  To the soldiers, Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.

For some reason, John's preparation of the way for Christ taps into the very materialistic nature of 21st century society also.  If you have more than you need, share.  If you think you need more, you're probably wrong.  If you've been doing something you feel ashamed of doing with regards to money, you should probably be ashamed and change it because Mammon has become your god and there is no serving two masters.

So the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.  (Luke 3:15)  They still didn't get it, but they understood that the message he was preaching, even if it meant giving up the very thing they idolized, was new and revolutionary and could, perhaps, put them in line for the coming of the Messiah.

So, watching and waiting expectantly, how do we, as faithful Christians, watch over John's preparation in the wilderness speech and not manipulate to a lukewarm, half-baked, cheap grace covers all message, and prepare our lives for the coming Messiah?  Does it include financial dis-ease to see the healer of all ills?  Does it include exiting our palaces of prosperity to encounter the Christ on his own terms?  Do we cease and desist keeping up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones so that the love of Christ can settle into the mangers of our own hearts this Christmas?

Watch and see.

Advent II - The Wandering

In the book of Mark, he is described this way:

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.  Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the River Jordan.  John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: 'After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

For some reason, my brain connects so much more with the visual of this Grizzly Adams type mountain man wearing a tunic of camel's hair and eating grasshoppers dipped in a bowlful of honey.  Imagine one of John's after hours party - all the countryside and all the people of Jerusalem out to hang out with him, the celebrity, and he says, "Hey, can someone pass the crickets?  I've got the munchies."

But he is a celebrity, it seems.  He wanders in the wilderness preparing an opportunity for one who is greater than he is, one more powerful, one who can do much more than baptize with what little water can be found in the wilderness. 

He is coming.

And we believe, because they inhabit our minds through a screen.

Celebrity is as celebrity does, as Forrest Gump should have said.

John the Baptist can't escape the celebrity status that he has gathered but with it comes great responsibility, and unlike present day stardom, he is not drawing the light to himself.  There is no self-aggrandizement, no braggadocio. no false sense that he thinks to himself, "Maybe I should think a little closer about my own sense of power." 

He recognizes that there is someone greater than he is and his job, as foretold by his own father, Zechariah, in Luke 1:77-79,

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high; for you will go on before the LORD to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.

What incredible poetry (this is entitled Zechariah's Song)!  He is singing about his child's future right after he is born and with the vivid understanding that his son has a role in showing God's mercy whose light shines down from heaven...

And guides our feet into the path of peace.

Isn't that what we all want this Christmas?  It seems like every Christmas I profess peace with my mouth, but it is still far from my heart.  I wander around in a trance-like state thinking about 'Christmassy' things and yet the gift that I truly want is one which John brings to us first and foremost.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all people.

We're not told much about John's early life only what Luke recalls after Zechariah's song:  And the child grew and became strong in the Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

Can you imagine the frustration of both Elizabeth and Zechariah at mealtime every night?

Elizabeth:  Zechy, have you seen John?  He's supposed to be washing up for supper.
Zechariah:  (shaking his head)  Last time I saw him he was by himself, heading out into the hills.
Elizabeth:  What does he do out there anyway?
Zecheriah:  Who knows?  I tried to find him once, follow his tracks, but they always lead to beehives.
Elizabeth:  What?
Zechariah:  I have no idea.  My guess is he likes honey.  Good thing his metabolism is still working.  Wait until he gets our age.  He'll have to hit the YMJA  (Young Men's Judean Association) and work off some of that desert fat.
Elizabeth:  Well, I suppose it's true.  He never seems to be hungry when he gets home.  I just hope he is getting enough protein.

I would have loved to see what Elizabeth and Zechariah would have said when he showed up with grasshopper wings stuck in his teeth.

But the scripture says that he lived in the wilderness.  He wandered and waited for something.  Perhaps he really didn't know what that would be or what that would look like.  Maybe John just assumed that he was destined for nomadicism and after his parents passed on it was only natural to think, just like the rest of the Jews living under Roman thumb, that God had forgotten them.

(Luke 3:2-6)  During the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.  He went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John went from place to place and talked about that which would set the people's feet on the path of peace.  Forgiveness of sins.  Here is the place which in our spiritual lives we find crooked paths of jealousy, rough roads of hatred and soaring mountains of pride.  When baptism occurs, those potholes are filled in, and sin ceases to have power over our salvation (or damnation, as it were), because the power of Christ allows us to be 'baptized into a death like his' which gives us life with him.  It was in this wandering that John encountered the word of God at long last.  Perhaps in a quiet morning when he least expected it, just finishing a morning stroll, and at the perfect time, God beckoned in his own way to this rugged man of the wilderness, who would soon be a celebrity in his own right, and said, 'Dearest John, I've got a plan and I need you near the front and center for a while.'

For this man who wandered, who probably was not unfamiliar with hardship, life would never be the same and for one who wandered by himself, great crowds would probably have caused him great stress.

But it is in the wandering that perhaps all of us can encounter God and the call to something bigger than ourselves - to allow the light of Christ to reflect off of us to show others one who is greater than us.  In this way, even in the midst of the struggle of making the path straight for God this Christmas, we might encounter the path into peace.

Advent I - Waiting

I've decided that during this Advent, I'm going to write to myself, the things that I need to hear in Advent.  In essence, I'll be preaching to myself.  I don't do that very often.  Usually, I try to picture my audience and the context in which they survive; and then I imagine the intersection of the biblical story and where the echoes of it make waves in reality.  That's just a fancy way of wondering how the Word of God comes alive today.

So, here I am in the struggle between writing to myself and recognizing that other people read this, which means I'm back at the intersection of individual context and biblical narrative.  It's the first week of Advent - the preparation for the coming of Christ and I've had a week's worth of Christmas music already playing.  We put up the Christmas tree last weekend while Elsa was still with us (she has since flown to Germany, which I'll get back to in a little bit); we sorted through all the memories which look a lot like ornaments but they turn into stories every year, and in the retelling of the ornaments, we get lost in the adventure of Advent.

The first week is always the most difficult, I think.  And that is not only from my saturation in American culture when the first week is also the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day.  After a gluttonous meal masticated at various speeds of consumption depending on which football game is playing at the time (equally gluttonous, if I'm honest with myself), we fade into opposite poles of wondering whether we should be preparing our shopping lists for the upcoming financial strain approaching, or taking a nap.

The Sunday comes quickly after a day that's supposed to be marked for giving thanks for things that have already arrived, but Advent contrives to make us expectant for that which is yet to come.  Or, in the Christian sense, come again.

It's a strange thing that we celebrate Christmas in this way every year.  We already know that the baby has been born; we know of this baby's growth into adulthood, his inconspicuous death and miraculous resurrection and his considerable influence on the middle east which radiated into the outer spokes of the known world.  We don't hope for something that has already happened.

Yet, here we are, every year, waiting for him to reappear.  It's like Jesus flew off on a plane to the other side of the solar system and we're waiting in the airport for his step through the customs gate, baggage in hand, prepared for hugs from family and friends.  We hold signs like, "Welcome back, Savior!"  Or, "We missed you, Jesus!"  Maybe, "It's about time, God." They are all true feelings in one way or the other, but sometimes I think the day of Christmas actually distracts from the greater picture.  We are so inured to Advent, and the skipping past it to the birthday party, that sometimes I actually think Christians believe that Jesus is going to come back as a baby.  

It's weird when we celebrate Christmas in this way.  It's as if I'm a first time parent, pacing back and forth chewing fingernails and drinking coffee, when my child is already sixteen years old.  That's ridiculous.  None of my daughters are going to be re-birthed every year (which Christine thanks God for every year), so why do we treat Christmas that way? 

That's the beauty of Advent.  It's the genius of waiting.

Elsa just left yesterday and already we are expectantly awaiting her return and subsequent description of all the details of her journey.  Due to twenty-first century technology, we can actually follow the flight of her plane while it coasts over exotic places like India and Dubai.  We can connect with her via applications on my phone and yet the whole time we look very much forward to her physical presence in this place, with us.  At the same time, it does us no good to simply watch the skies for the next six weeks waiting expectantly for her.  That would be silly, right?  In order to endure the time between sightings, we do that which God has called us to do - we live.

Our gospel lesson today, from Luke 21:25-30  There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.  On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.  People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming in the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.  At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Surely, in recent weeks, there is anguish and perplexity in the world.  Some are fainting from terror, and a little section in my heart has that same fear that we should have just kept Elsa close to us, to keep her safe.

But we're meant to live, to keep our feet on the ground (unless we are flying in airplanes), not to have our heads in the stars amidst the signs of the sun, moon and stars.  Yes, we can take a peek at what's happening above us, theologically speaking - way beyond our pay grade.  And, when God decides that the time is right and ripe, Jesus will find a way to appear in the clouds. 

Not the iCloud, by the way.  I'm positive that Jesus will not arrive via the SaviorApp on my phone.  And when the scriptures say, "Stand up and lift your heads," I'm kind of thinking that we're not supposed to be looking down at our phones when that happens.  Redemption is a little bigger than the next funny youtube video.

So we wait.  We prepare for the coming of Christ, not in the form of a baby, or at least I don't think the Son of Man is going to reappear as a screaming infant freshly de-umbilicaled from God.  He will come with power and glory and majesty of the likes we have never seen.  We wait at the gate neither holding signs or waiting for arrival signs but talking to our neighbors who stand shoulder to shoulder with us waiting for the doors to open.  We hear their stories of hope and joy about who is to issue forth from customs.

Imagine if the customs security asked Jesus if he had to declare anything and he responded, (from Mark 1:15 after his baptism) "The time has come.  The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent and believe the good news!"

Imagine the sputtering of the guard as he proclaims, "That's not what I meant.  You know, any plants, fruits or nuts."  Jesus shakes his head. 

"Any dangerous items?" The guard finishes his query.

Jesus smirks.  "You've got no idea."

I can't wait to see that.

Child Abuse

Last week, Paul Ehrlich, a doctor of biology and ecology, accused Christine and I (and countless others) of child abuse.  The program Q and A, a television show dedicated to discussing sensitive topics by a diverse panel of scientists, entertainers, mathematicians, clergy and the like, invited Paul Ehrlich to be part of a panel which discussed a question regarding whether or not a Muslim school in Sydney was right to refrain from singing the national anthem because in their religious calendar year they are in a period of joylessness.  A time of lament.  As the Australian national anthem opens, "Australians all let us rejoice..."

Ehrlich's body posture signified all the academic arrogance one has seen time and time again with regards to the "Science vs. Religion" question (as if the two have to be diametrically opposed.)  He reclined in his chair, arms crossed, one leg over the other almost rolling his eyes as the question was put forth and as his turn came to answer, the snobbery in his voice oozed.  The questioner asked, "Didn't you sing your own national anthem in school when you were growing up?"  (I think he meant the Pledge of Allegiance which states: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God...)

Ehrlich then smirked and said, "Yes, of course, but we didn't have child abuse required in the schools in those days."

Religious instruction.

There it is.  He just implied that by teaching students the value (and values) of faith in a supreme being, we are purposefully and systematically abusing children.

After these outrageous comments were spoken (Ehrlich himself tried to backtrack slightly and say that 'he didn't want to be outrageous' but sometimes when one is on camera one likes to see what kind of reaction one can get) there was a warm smattering of applause from the audience.  They liked what he had to say.  Enough of this old time religion.  Enough of this outdated philosophy of bowing in servanthood to non-sensical, all-powerful being which mysteriously controls the universe.  We want a god like everyone else.  We want a god that does exactly what we want, when we want.  We want a god to be

Us.

Isn't that where our culture and society has evolved?  We no longer need to look outside of ourselves for salvation, or even hope, for that matter?  Doesn't our culture tell us that our own narcissistic ecclesiology need only worship at the altar of the ego?  Instead of speaking of God as the Great I Am, we have simply replaced him ourselves and we intone, I am god.  In the process of replacing the true God of the universe on the throne of our hearts, we have erased the hope of the world, the light of the nations, and the true ability to care for each other, because if, as Ehrlich presumes, there are only 'supernatural monsters' that the religious unintellectuals believe, there is no reason to be anything but hedonistic.

Life is short, do what you want.  Be happy.

It's in this cultural understanding that I think we find a true source of abuse.  When we teach young people that there is no lament, there is no sadness and that our true, and only, advice for life is to try to be happy and then die, we don't give them the tools to deal with the inevitable darkness and desperation that occurs during our breathing years. 

Recently, in an assessment task in our Religion and Ethics class at school, the students were to come up with twelve pieces (or things) that gave their life meaning.  i.e. What makes my life worthwhile?

Of course family and friends were first, but for a few, the majority could not understand why they give life meaning, only that 'they are there for them.'  The rest of the answers included, cars, sports, music and almost always some kind of on-line activity and with it came the 'meaning question' when they responded,

"It gives me an escape from life for a while."

I repeat that in my head each day now, because these students were expressing what I'd been thinking for a while.  Our culture teaches them that it's all about them; be happy; if you don't like something or you think it's boring, change it until it makes you happy; and for goodness sake, if it makes you sad, run like the wind away from it.  Don't deal with it.  Run.

But sooner or later, this kind of cultural child abuse leaves these kids with nowhere else to run.  With no meaning in life other than to be happy, and no tools to deal with sadness or hopelessness, depression and anxiety become almost an inevitable conclusion.  When we don't teach students how to use lament as an expression of one of the mysteries of life, this is the form of abuse we should be talking about.

So Paul Ehrlich may be speaking for the popular culture which popularly replaces God with themselves, and by quoting famous scientist Stephen Hawking, he seems to think it will give his argument greater authority without receiving any of the negative backlash, we find ourselves in a 21st century conundrum.

Who is God here?

I Am.

You can decide which.

A Rhinestone Cowboy

I've met a lot of smart people in my life - people with brains billowing out both sides of their heads, facts and figures memorized, seeing the academic picture is second nature.  They can read a textbook cover to cover and instantly recognize what all the footnotes mean before they have even read them. 

I don't come across wise people as often - not that knowledge and wisdom are necessarily mutually exclusive, it's just that wise people tend not to speak as much.   Listening is their addiction.  From a human perspective, the best formula for wisdom that I have can think of is this:

[(Knowledge + Experience) - boastfulness] X passion = Wisdom

Those who have the intelligence to move forward in life, in spite of fears, to engage in all that life has to offer, subtract from that our society's incessant need to be noticed, multiply it by a conscious joy of what you really like to do and that's wisdom.

Trader is wise.  I've met him multiple times - he is married to Juliet, one of Christine's best friends.  In the United States he would be known as a rancher, in Australia, I guess a cattleman, or propertyman, but the best way, and probably easiest way to describe him is:

Trader owns land that has cattle on it and he makes sure they stay alive.

There, I've brushed my hands of trying to tell you what his job description is which is like trying to count the facets on a diamond, and now I can tell you what he is like.

When we pulled up our purple station wagon in front of their house, the kids greeted us with joyful hellos and screams of approval.  Trader and Juliet have three sons and I have three daughters - kind of like a weird Brady Bunch reunion.  Their sons, Hugo, Flynn and Ned, are high energy/incredibly respectful young boys who enjoy being outdoors.  Juliet is a police officer who works with Sarah on the W.A.S.T.I.D. program.  They live in a house near the 'downtown' district of Charleville which includes various pubs, two schools, an RSL and a few shopping stores. 

Like most of the houses in town, the house they live in is built on stilts and underneath almost all of these houses is storage space and miscellaneous play areas for kids.  The general idea for stilt houses is not only to avoid the damage of flash floods which can occur, but during the summer, the wind can cool off the house even just a little bit.  As we climbed the steps to enter the house, it became apparent that my emotions felt as if we were stepping back in time - and that's not speaking pejoratively, only a sense that this place where they lived had escaped the erosion of the late 1900's.  In fact, the décor spoke to a time from the 1950's; pistachio colored walls, vinyl and chrome chairs, wooden furniture that seemed handmade and created to last.  Even as Juliet greeted us, she was wearing a floral print apron the bespoke of a time when boys had crewcuts and girls spent much of their upbringing learning to sew, clean and cook. 

Juliet never really stops moving; she's like a hummingbird flitting between projects, checking on the kids, making sure the dinner is cooking asking the ubiquitous Australian question, "Would anyone like some tea?"  Behind her eyes, in the crevices where hard life accumulates, it presses on me why movement is essential - because if one pauses to stop and think, even for a little bit, how desperate times are when rain doesn't come, tears will flow instead.  She is strong enough to hold back the tide; a vibrant wife and mother who does whatever it takes for the family to make it.

Trader sits at the round kitchen table a smirking smile on his face.  His greeting to me, "Howya goin'?" is administered with a vise-like handshake.  I want to be tough and grip harder, but his hand is like a brick.  His eyes are much different than Juliet's, although they are both blue ( if I remember correctly.)  Steeled against the difficulties of what life brings, Trader radiates not only Australian male machismo, but also a good-natured wit.  His face is a perpetual two tone color: (kind of like the Danish flag, if you ask me - I can write that because he is six hundred kilometers west now) red and white.  The bottom half of his face, nose, cheeks and chin are kind of burnt color.  If you could mix rust and blood, that's what you'd get.  The northern half, bridge to scalp, is...  well, the best color I can describe it, and this sounds incredibly weird, is like the color of a plucked turkey, kind of a pale pink/white.  To state the obvious, I can tell that he wears sunglasses and a hat every day. 

I suppose he is kind of the romanticized version of what American's encountered with Crocodile Dundee.  You can imagine Trader, out on the range, working the cattle, being chased by brown snakes (which he said has happened to him), flying his plane finding the cattle trying not to crash, avoiding kangaroos by the thousands driving back and forth between property and home.  He's one of those guys that seem so manly, that when you look at him the first time, he looks like he's got a five o'clock shadow, you take a sip of your drink, and all of the sudden he's sprouting a ten o'clock shadow.  His bushy chest hair sticks out the top of his shirt like an extra wool blanket. 

I wonder if he grew that in a day.

As he invites me to sit with him over an ice cold beer, I ask questions about his daily life and he regales me with stories from the bush.  He looks into the distance as if somehow part of him is still out there - out on the land - and it is then that it hits me...

Here is a very wise man.  He can read the land like a textbook.  Trader has memorized the currents of the wind, the direction of the dust, the bends of the brush and uses that knowledge to engage in his passion which is free range cattle.  Most people don't recognize the intelligence of farmers or the wisdom that is invariably in the job description.  They don't recognize the passion which burns in them not just to overcome the elements and put food on the table, but the farmer/rancher/cowboy desires to satisfy the consumer in a way that only agriculturalists can. 

The difficulty that both Juliet and Trader encounter living in Charleville is that they do not live on the property; they, like many ranchers and those who work in the mines must be separate from their families for large swaths of time.  In order to do the work at hand, on the dry dusty landscape, there are weeks when families do not get to see each other, and this is written especially large when the rain does not come.

We sat and ate with them, the rhinestone cowboy, his hat not sparkling with gemstones, but his heart reflecting the gems of his wife and family; and a town cop/mother of three laughing loudly to engage with the family from the east.  Their home, seemingly from Back to the Future, stilted and airy was a refuge for us, an oasis from the world closer to the city.

They are a beautiful family.  Wish they lived closer.

The Elixir of Life

I take for granted the times when I walk to the cupboard, take out a glass and lift the handle on the tap.  Lukewarm water flows freely into the cup and I drink deeply but rarely do I think about this miracle of modern plumbing or, more importantly, how important this easily accessible water is to most of Western culture.

As if by some miracle of nature, there seems to be an endless supply of life's elixir - water - and far too often we treat it as such.  We (speaking in general) leave the shower pouring over us when our skin and hair has been cleaned ten times over.  Our toilets rinse with a gallon of water per flush.  We spend inordinate amounts of time and energy hooking up sprinkler systems to water a lawn on which we rarely walk.

But water is life. 

Life is very hard for the people around Charleville, when water has ceased to fall from the sky.  Clouds are a rarity; the sun is a constant, beastly friend with a searing smile which creases the skin of the planet.

The statistics of water are hopefully well known to you.  Seventy percent of the surface of the earth is water although the vast majority is beyond consumption and use because of its salinity.  Of the 326 million trillion gallons (326 with eighteen zeroes behind it), only two percent is freshwater.  And of that two percent, most of it is locked away in the polar ice caps leaving us with three minute sources for humans to be able to live - freshwater lakes, streams and water vapor.

Tapping into these lakes and rivers (and underground reservoirs) is how humans can survive, but it is the fickle water vapor that replenishes through the water cycle - as most fifth graders could probably describe in great detail. (hopefully)

These are some of the statistics - but there is another one I want to start off with today, a hydrationary one that I wasn't aware of but it was brought to my attention by two of my sisters-in-law a few weeks ago:

Water tastes funny sometimes.

I did my best to argue with them, but in my eighteen years of experience, arguing with the in-laws is like trying to use the Force to turn off the light after you've gotten into bed: Futile.

We were vacationing at the Gold Coast and had journeyed to the apartment where Nicole and Amanda were staying with their two broods of children, when over the night meal, Nicole took a drink of water and scrunched up her face as if she had tried to ingest a lemon by biting through its skin.

"This water tastes horrible."

Theoretically speaking, water shouldn't have any taste at all; it should only have two sensory qualities - touch and temperature - but according to my Princess and the Pea sisters-in-law, water has taste also.  So, I attempted to disagree.  Attempted. Like any good scientist, I smelled the water and like a great wine connoisseur, I swirled it in my glass looking for any discolorations, or anything else that might give the water a taste.  I raised the glass to my lips sipping (mind you) so that I could engage my nose in the process, because, as we all know, taste is very much dependent on our ability to smell also.  And as I drank, I noticed, briefly, a faint feathery touch of chemicals in the water...

But I spoke it not for fear that would open the door for a sense of rightness from my banded sisters by marriage.

If I reflect on life, I know that water, from different areas, has a certain taste.  For instance, if one were to drink the water from the taps at my parents house, one would get the sense that one does not just drink the water, but one chews it.  There is so much rust that it tastes like you just swallowed your bicycle.

In some countries, the water tastes so bad that they either drink sparkling mineral water, which, in my unprofessional opinion is the worst of all possible hydrated worlds, akin to ingesting carbonated urine (pronounced u-rhine in Australia) which is another story that may be told some day - or they drink beer. 

So, I admit - I was wrong, and it grinds me to write it.  There is nothing more defeating than having your in-laws stand over you like Tolkein's Galadriel, superimposing their will of awesome power in rightness.  But I must go into the west...

It's a good thing I think my sisters-in-law are excellent, or I might have to use the ring of power. 

I encountered the truest definition of their rightness when we first arrived in Charleville.  After meeting the most pleasant park attendant, Rhonda, (Whom I will write about later, but when introduced to her I kept thinking to myself, Help me, Rhonda, help, help me, Rhonda), we settled into our cabin and I proceeded to take a two minute shower because of what I assumed to be drought restrictions in the area.  The moment the water jetted from the shower head, I was aware of the smell.  The sulfurous odor smelled as if Hades had indeed spewed forth and was filling the steaming air with the Hell's eau d' toilette.  Not only did it smell bad...

It, indeed, did not taste particularly good.  Now I'm not prone to drinking shower water, but sometimes it happens, and the water issuing forth made me call it Satan's Martini.

But Charleville hasn't had a good rain for years.  I mean that - it's been years.  As I perused the scenery on a morning run, the air seemed to fold in on itself because of the lack of humidity.  My mouth dried out after minutes and the flies... (we'll get to them later)

As I ran, though, something strange assailed my early morning exertions.  House after house, lawn after lawn, was being watered by the residents.  I expected to see crispy grass, or at least dried out weeds for lawns, but some had manicured, verdant yards.  I stopped to watch a few from a distance, an older lady stood in her tattered, battered bathrobe, smoking cigarette held between two fingers of one hand, nozzled water hose in the other hovering over small patches of grass hydrating it inch by inch.  Another man stood, hand on hip, staring up at the sky as he waited for the water to spew out.  At first it appeared as if he was relieving himself, and perhaps that is the right way to emotionally think about what occurred, but he seemed to be imploring the heavens to once, just once, open and flood the town.

Literally flood the town.

It happens, sometimes, and the locals will talk about it, but as I asked one of those locals, Trader Schmidt, a friend of ours who I will describe him and his family in detail the next time, about the water usage, he said, "We don't get any rain, but there is a vast source of water underneath our feet.  We just need to pump it out."

Vast resources just out of reach, but takes some work to retrieve it.  Sounds like most of life, doesn't it. 

So, in this desiccated world, just below the surface is a reserve of the rejuvenating source of the elixir of life.  I think that's what God would say lies beneath the scratched surface of who Christ is when he proclaims, "I am the water of life - the one who comes to me will never be thirsty again."  Underneath the surface of God in Jesus, beneath all the detritus and sediment that our dried out, shallow theologies that have buried the essence of true life, we find a source of fulfillment for this life and the next.  We drink deep and find another Bible verse...

Psalm 34:8

Taste and see that the LORD is good.  Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

My sisters-in-law are right again.  The water does taste.

A Hero

Very few people know the name Nguyen Sy Huy.

He was twenty-four years old when he died; he was carrying an AK47 and passing out of the jungle when a young twenty-year-old Australian shot and killed him.  It was wartime, of course - casualties occur, but for Tom Williamson, the young man who fired the shots that ended Huy's life, casualties come in many forms.  For Tom, it seems he lost not only his innocence that day, but his sense of peace.

Samantha Hawley pens the story for the ABC News Service in Australia.  Her main objective was to give a narrative of the devastating effects of war on those who are called into its sphere.  This young man, Tom Williamson, has never forgotten that day, nor will he ever.  After Huy was pronounced dead, Williamson's commanding officer helped him strip the body and bury it.  Later, the officer gave Tom the Vietnamese soldier's effects: his compass and his hammock.  Williamson brought them back to Australia, put them in his lock box and never took them out again.

Not for forty years.

But Tom could never feel that sense of peace.  So, with the help of Ngo Thi Thuy Hang, the founder of Marin, a Vietnamese non-governmental organisation committed to searching for information about Vietnamese soldiers missing in action, he returned to Vietnam to return Huy's effects to his relatives.

Can you imagine it?  Can you imagine after so long returning to a family whose life you destroyed?  It's different for war, I suppose.  In mankind's ceaseless attempt to overpower, pawns are used to pivot the world's struggle for supremacy - pawn's like Tom Williamson.

But what about the war that is raging in our quest for escape?  What about the war on drugs?  Who are the prisoners of war that are tortured?  Who are the generals who send the napalm of ice, cocaine, heroin and LSD wiping out swaths of young life?  Who is the enemy and how should they be punished?

Certainly, it is the drug dealers, but even moreso, it is the drug makers - the cartels of the powerful who create the essence of evil which erases the minds of so many young people worldwide.  Would it not be of the greatest importance to let the punishment fit the crime?  Even as I imagine young Tom Williamson's greatest regret of taking another life, of living with the guilt and unimagined grief in another country far away; and even as I imagine his return to that jungled land searching for the tormented souls who never have known what happened; and even as I imagine him asking for forgiveness in the midst of the tear streaked faces...

Would this not be fitting for the drug dealers and the drug makers?  Would it not be duly appropriate that for their punishment, they would have to journey to the home of every person who has experienced the thievery of life because of these drugs?  Would it not be the best form of pain for this axis of evil to sit in the midst of the tormented mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, wives and husbands who have had their lives obliterated by drugs?

To have them kneel in the ocean of pain that they have created because of their thirst for money and power.  This is what they should receive.  This is how they should spend the rest of their days.

Instead, though, most drug dealers and drug barons leave the treachery of their potions to others and the havoc that has ensued, especially the devastation that occurs when drugs take a young life, creates a life of difficulty for the real heroes.

The police officers. 

They are left with the lonely task of crisply walking to the door, rapping in the pitched night after all have gone to sleep; they stand, hat under arm, waiting with heart beating loudly in their throats to tell one more mother, one more son, that someone they loved has had their life stolen from them.

Unfortunately, all helping professions have come under attack from the Apache helicopters of our media.  In the ever-present hunger to scoop the headline news of negativity, the media chooses to report the singularities that occur in the high stress occupations of saving and protecting lives.  And now, these doctors, teachers and especially police officers must protect themselves at all times - record every single moment of their working lives - so that they aren't pulled apart at the seams by the very people they have pledged to protect.

This police officer, this hero, that we worked with, was not what I was expecting.  Sarah is a quiet and demure woman and mother of two.  She lives in the town of Charleville, her house is across the street from a park.  In their backyard is an inflatable water castle situated in the middle of charred grass.  Sarah is a good cook and a doting mother and partner.

And yet at the same time, she is a senior constable, on a team of many heroes, in charge of promoting a drug prevention program aimed at eradicating the very thing that is erasing the future of so many young people in Australia.  If you were to approach Sarah in her uniform, you would see a tall, confident woman proudly wearing her dark blues, utility belt rife with protective items.  On her head is a billed hat with the checkerboard white and blue.  She is fit and if you were to see her from a distance, she is a solid force to be reckoned with, but as you get to know her, she is an easy-going, personable citizen of Charleville.

She cares.  I think that's the thing that blew me away.  She really cares about people; it's not fake whatsoever.  She desperately wants to see people succeed and even in the midst of the tragedies of the job, she seeks a better future. You can see it when she runs a boxing class for young kids or she speaks jokingly with high schoolers.  You can see it in Senior Constable Grayson's life.

She's a hero.

As project W.A.S.T.I.D. took shape, it became increasingly more evident that this project was not about the present but about the future.  That's what heroes do: they preserve the future by protecting the present.

We would hear stories of the Charleville Police Service in the upcoming days.  Some great stories from her partner Mark, who drove the bus with me and a group of primary school age kids on a trip through the desert.

Ice

Everyone's addicted to something.

We all try to hide it; sometimes we succeed, sometimes the mania boils over like a pot of potatoes.  The heat produces a by-product that we can't explain.  We don't like to admit that we are addicts because it means that something else has power over us, in quasi-Lutheran terms, instead of alien righteousness, we encounter alien powerlessness.  That which produces the chemical effect in our brains, a euphoria, or a rush of adrenaline, cannot be contained or countered by anything else.  The addict must find a way to inject the foreign substance to escape from whatever form of life that is presently occurring.

I am an addict. 

It's part of the program, the first step is to admit that you have a problem.  I am addicted to baseball.  It might be kind of cute, I suppose, to put that in the same breath as alcohol or drug addiction, but there are times when I act like a drug addict.  Sometimes I wake up early in the morning to check the scores of my New York Mets.  It has been accentuated in the last few weeks because the Mets have made the playoffs, but there have been times throughout the last couple of years when I will sneak away from my family, phone in hand and connect to the constant source of info-addiction, the internet, and check the latest messages by other Mets fans on Metsmerizedonline.com. 

Sometimes when I jog, I think about who will be pitching next year, what the stats will mean, how will the Mets organize their budget for an extended dynasty after this year.  Just today when Christine reminded me that we are going to take Elsa to Toowoomba on Thursday to have her wisdom teeth pulled, what's my first thought?  Elsa's nervousness about the anesthesia?  Her pain management afterwards?  Maybe even organizing her homework from missing school for a couple of days? 

Nope - I grew morose because I was going to miss the first pitch of the third game of the National League Championship Series. 

So, I proclaim - I'm an addict.

True enough, addictions take all forms; the Greek words, so I've been told for 'addiction' is mania.  There are all sorts of manias:  Egomania (addiction to self), kleptomania (addiction to stealing) philomania (That's Robert Palmer's' addiction - to love), but the addiction to drugs that is sweeping the planet is the one that most frightens me. 

There are also sorts of reasons to be mortified about what drugs do to people: here are my top five just looking at the 'ice' (a form of crystallized methamphetamine.)

1.  Symptoms of ice included paranoia, schizophrenia, hallucinations, and violent, almost Hulk-like outbursts of rage.  The stories told in hospital emergency rooms would make Stephen King novels seem like Roald Dahl books.

2.  The devastating effects to the brain that occur from ice use actually creating holes, or gaps, in the brain that cannot be restored.  Unlike some drugs which the user, once reformed, can recover from, ice doesn't offer that 'self-healing' solution.  Kids don't understand this.  Adults don't recognize it.

3.  Drug dealers do not care whatsoever what happens to the user.  According to one of the police officers we worked with in Charleville, one thousand dollars of ice ingredients can make a product that can be sold to the general populace for a seventy-five thousand dollar profit.

In two weeks.

That being said, once hooked on ice, there is almost no return.  The time, money and resources spent on acquiring the drug are not the dealers' problem. 

4.  Drugs are becoming more and more glamorized in our media.  As of yet, ice isn't seen as the 'popular' drug like alcohol, tobacco or caffeine, but with the legalization of marijuana in some places and the eventual normalization of the drug culture at parties typified in almost all teenage movies, sooner or later young people begin to realize that drugs are simply the 'best way to escape from an increasingly desperate world.'  In the TV series, Breaking Bad, which has been described as a digital drug also, the main character, a science teacher, turns making meth and selling it to fund his cancer treatments.  This is one of the darkest (and most violent) TV shows ever produced and judging by the viewership, it has hit a chord.  The problem is, the viewer is left with the option for rooting for the 'common man' who has to sell drugs in order to survive.  Everyone else is the bad guy: the insurance companies, the school, the police - we are left to wonder...

Maybe selling drugs will make me a hero also.

5.  Everyone is doing it.  Perhaps the biggest lie of all.  The problem remains, though, because of our own technomania, we see the worst of the world every second of every minute.  Our social media encourages constant checks and updates regarding the world and its collision course with Megiddo.  What humans do best is to avoid fear and pain; it's a natural tendency, and drugs offer that momentary surreality - a false sense of well being that seems to give a rush of hope and pleasure followed by a crash into the abyss of pain and terror. 

Everyone is not doing it!  In fact, the statistics would prove it.  According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2014, seven percent of Australians had tried ice.  That's definitely not a majority, but think about it: seven percent of the Australian population, even rounding it to thirty million people...

Is two million people. 

Imagine two million people displaying the symptoms in #1.


So, we've got this ice problem in Australia and it has nothing to do with global warming or cooling.  Ice is invading not only the cities, but the Outback also.  For those small town residents who assumed that distance would somehow create a buffer against the problem, their assumption is wrong.  Even in the villages of Cunnamulla and Charleville, the drug has spread like a disease.  Horror stories resonate in the Outback hamlets and the residents, even knowing that the plague is coming, seem to hope as if tomorrow will show up just like the yesterday of fifty years ago.

So in order to combat the problem, it seems that we need a superhero.

She wasn't what I expected.

Out Back

In some ways, the continent/country of Australia appears from space to be a heart.  Or, as I peruse the globes and world maps that frequent many Australian schools and homes, that's what it looks like to me.  The arteries are the major water sources - the great rivers - of the continent, which crisscross the borders of states, joining and disconnecting on their meandering to the sea.  But if you were to take a closer inspection of this cardiac continent, you would probably notice that almost all of it has a bad case of angina. Roughly seventy percent of the continent is arid or semi-arid desert which means that the Outback, anything further in than five hours from the coast, is basically on life support.

In much of western and central Queensland, rain has visited about as often as Martians. Of the great deserts of the world, central Australia is not as well known as the Sahara or the Gobi (or even Antarctica - the driest place on earth - for that fact), but it is in the red center of this country that we find such an incredible life force.  There is an indelible resistance to fatalism, that no matter what people do, they will conquer.  The people who live in these places, in the middle of the wilderness, are some of the toughest and most amazing people I have ever encountered.  As I gazed at their weather beaten faces, their eyes permanently squinting from the ceaseless sun that pounds down from the bright blue skies and reflects from the red sands underneath, I see a fixed determination that the lack of water will not dampen their joie de vivre.

It took us a while to get to them, though. 

We began driving on the last of the school holidays day.  The girls curled up in the back seat huddled underneath the keyboard that poked over between the two back headrests; they began reading book after book and every once in a while I'd glance over my shoulder to see if they were still breathing.  I sat in the front passenger seat digesting the baseball game on my phone that was about to become inconsequential in vast stretches of our drive.  Bars of activity would be sources of amusement and for some reason, as the game dragged into the later innings I believed that if I could just hold my phone closer to the roof of the car, I would somehow get better reception.  Kind of like how we used to think that if we put enough tinfoil on the rabbit ears of our televisions, we would somehow get better black and white screen results.

That's the wilderness for you: a place away from home that does not offer the creature comforts that one is used to.  The wilderness is a constant source of frustration, of heat, of comparison, of complaint.  It didn't take me long after we left the friendly city limits of Toowoomba when I thought, "Are we there yet?" 

But Charleville is a long way past Toowoomba.  The sign read Charleville, 551 kilometres.  That's how they spell it here - kilometres, centre, metre, -  it took me a while to get used to and I always pronounce it wrong just to annoy Christine.   It's a long way and not far past Toowoomba did I start to see a difference in the landscape.  I don't know if it's just me, but when the green stops, a sense of hopelessness starts to set in, like a one page newspaper blanket on a homeless cold night.  As I peered around at that which assailed my senses, I hoped beyond hope that our tyres were going to hold up.  (that's how Australians spell radial tires. - I did it again.  I'm annoying Christine.)

The names of the places are as strange as they landscape.  Dalby, Chinchilla, Morven...  We passed creeks like the Wullambilla and the Bungeworgarai (I know you all tried to pronounce them, but don't.  It's like beginning to gag.)  The scenery passed from heartland scrub to sparse vegetation.  The trees and the grass were as hardy as the people and each inch of it seemed to be sharp.  I don't know how to put it other than that - just sharpness.  The grass had evil points - spinifex, it is called.  Only kangaroos eat it when they have to.  The trees are so dense and distrustful of the environment, that they shoot up quickly and thinly, like spikes to heaven, miraculously green in the midst of the dying desert around them.

There is a desperate sense of hopefulness in this dire desert, that somewhere, somehow, somewhen, the rain will come.  The clouds will overshadow the iridescent blue blotting out the scorching sun and drench the red dirt with rain and it will bleed.

The desert will bleed and it's heart will start again.

I can't even begin to imagine the Israelites wandering through the wilderness journeying to a place that they'd only dreamed of.  Like we with Charleville, only whispers of the futre (that's not really how Australians spell 'future' but I like to be cheeky), the Israelites, could not help but wonder where this journey into the desert would take them.  They complained about the lack of water, the lack of food, the lack of normalcy of life.  They forgot that it was God who was trying to filter their collective soul to put their trust in him - in the wilderness.  Sometimes it takes the spinefex and the dry Bungeworgarai to help us recognize our utter and complete dependence on the benevolence of a gracious God.  Sometimes we have to leave behind the 4G of Gatton and recognize that in the wilderness, the only connection we will get to the outer world is a look into the cosmos and the immensity of the stars above.

Our seven and a half hour drive from Gatton to Charleville past the sign at Roma that proclaimed we had reached the Outback of Australia, out back of the constancy and normalcy of every day life, in the midst or the sharpness and harshness and aridity of the dry heart of Australia, was an opportunity for us to recognize our utter dependence on God's willingness to lead us to places that we'd never gone before.

We reached Charleville before the kangaroos hit the roads...

The Outback

"Land Down Under," by Men at Work, arrived on the top 100 charts in 1980.  I still remember when the American TV show, Solid Gold (and their amazing Solid Gold dancers) blared this new sound by an Australian rock band that pretty much no one north of the equator had ever heard of.  On Saturday night as those same Solid Gold dancers grooved out to the tunes of the '80's, I tape recorded the song with the help of my trusty tape recorder where you had to push both the play and the record button at the same time to transfer the sound onto the cassette tape.  At seven years of age, I had no idea what in the world they were talking about, but it sounded cool.

So, I've got this image of Australia planted some thirty-five years ago that resounds in Australian lingo with drug references and Australian stereotypes that would have made no sense to me as a young American boy, but as I grew up and listened to that tape occasionally, it became apparent that Men at Work was speaking about a country and a group of people that longed to be noticed.  They want to be recognized for their commitment and participation in the world, not just for traveling outside of their aquatic borders, their amazing ability to ingest the bottom scrapings of a beer vat (vegemite), and their propensity (as the band proclaimed) for glowing women and puking men who are well over six feet three inches and have been pumping iron for years.

It's in the lyrics, I promise

But as a young American boy from Iowa where I didn't even see the ocean until I was thirteen, I couldn't really fathom an island country the size of the United States.  I didn't visit Australia until I was twenty-one and that was with the jazz choir from college.  We saw some of the sights and did the tourist thing, but the song, "Land Down Under" would continue to haunt me.  It wasn't until I saw Crocodile Dundee that I knew that I wanted to experience more than chundering and thundering.

It was in this movie, probably the first American attempt to bring to the forefront Australian culture (however fake it may have been).  Crocodile Dundee, in my opinion, was probably the platform from which all American's understanding of Australia came, whether it was the launching pad for the Crocodile Hunter or the Big Red Car of the Wiggles.

Now that Christine and I have been married for eighteen years, we have had various opportunities to travel inside the borders of Australia.  We have visited the major cities and all the capitals of the states except Darwin; we have been to Tasmania, to Perth, to Uluru, but staying in a drought stricken Outback Town, that is something we hadn't done...

Until this last week.

Sarah Grayson, a police officer in Charleville, Queensland, invited our family to come out and be part of a drug prevention program in Charleville and the surrounding area.  The program, W.A.S.T.I.D., (Wasted Adolescence Spent Taking Illegal Drugs), is a response to the epidemic dis-ease related to the drug, ice, better known as methamphetamine much popularized in the American TV show Breaking Bad.

I'll get into the some of the statistics later and some of the stories that the officers shared with us regarding ice, but I wanted to lay a foundation for the journey, like the Israelites who were heading off into the unknown desert wasteland.

We left our home town of Gatton on a Monday morning.  We bustled around the house making sure that all the windows were shut, the toilet lids were up, the power points were turned off.  It's still one of the things that I have to get used to in Australia that you don't just turn the lights off, but you actually turn their power sources off too.  We made sure that everything was tucked away and we packed into our car like the Australian Griswalds heading off to the Australian Wallyworld of Charleville. 

Charleville - population roughly 3,500 about five hundred kilometers west of the nearest big town of Toowoomba. Welcome to the Queensland Outback.

For a boy who came from the Land Up Over, the Land Down Under was about to surprise him.

My Precious

Article in the August addition of the Lutheran magazine that won the silver award for most humorous item in the Australasian Religious Press Awards.

There are three things in Australia that I have learned not to poke fun at:

1.       Vegemite

2.       Slim Dusty

3.       Cricket

It’s very easy to ridicule Vegemite because it tastes like someone scraped an oil pan of a rusted out old ute, but I promised Christine that I wouldn’t make fun of it.

I don’t know much about the country singer Slim Dusty, but the songs that I’ve heard sound, well… different.  Because my musical tastes bend at a different angle, Slim scratches my eardrums like a wandering alleycat, but I promised Christine that I wouldn’t make fun of his sound.

Cricket makes little sense and even for a baseball fan like myself that can watch nine innings of one hit ball, I can’t understand how one person can bat for a whole day and be rewarded for hitting foul balls while the rest of his team sits in the stands wearing cardigan sweaters while putting white sunscreen on their lips and noses.  I didn’t promise Christine that I wouldn’t make fun of cricket, though.

Most Australians would all rejoice at being young and free to eat Vegemite while listening to Slim Dusty duel a tabby on the prowl during a cricket match that last forty-two hours, while two people have batted and they’ve had nineteen breaks for tea.  These three things are precious to them, I think, and as I soak into the Australian culture, I begin to appreciate them even if I don’t understand them.

It happens in churches, too. 

There are some precious things in Lutheran Churches that ‘outsiders’ don’t understand either.  I’ve heard these before:

1.       Why are people singing with an organ?  Do they listen to organ music on their iPods?

2.       Why does the pastor wear a dress to church?

3.       What’s with the word ‘Alleluia?’  I thought it was a happy word?

4.       Why do people who read the lessons sound like they are reading from an Economics text book? 

5.       Why do we have to confess our sins every week?  Doesn’t God already know what’s going on?  No use bringing it up again.

Often, when some of these ‘precious’ things are discussed, there is a tendency to be defensive, but usually I would guess we just do some things in church because we’ve always done them and we’ve forgotten exactly why.  Perhaps there should be some discussion about the purpose of music, the history of teaching the faith through sound.  Maybe we could remind the congregation that a pastor’s clothes should not distract from the service – the stole is a yoking to God.  We should be shouting the ‘Alleluia’ at the top of our voices and reading the Bible should be an expression of wonder.  Confession is not for God’s sake, but for ours.

Maybe we just need to be reminded why we do what we do and why that makes them special. 

P. S.  Christine doesn’t like Slim Dusty’s music either.