Writing about the death of Osama bin Laden is a complex and frightening thing. I was up late Sunday night and caught the earliest rumbles of his demise and then saw President Obama’s comments and official announcement of the operation which found and 
eliminated bin Laden at his palatial hideaway in Pakistan.
And then I thought about it. I heard of people in the streets just a few miles away at the White House having an impromptu party. Come Monday morning I had heard of the same kind of celebration at Ground Zero. And of course, Monday was a day of Facebook and Twitter soundbites back and forth between many varied and nuanced responses to his death.
I posted the first confirmed report of the death I could find late on Sunday night with only one word to accompany it: “Wow.” I’ve not said anything else online about it. And really that was my first and has been my most poignant feeling since I heard the news. I was stunned. It was long coming and overdue. It was world-changing. I can almost trust myself now, after a day and two nights of thought and listening and reflection, to say a few things.
I still have had no desire or impulse to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden with song and laughter and light heartedness. But I can honestly say that I am glad we now have a world that can spin on without his distorted views and his ability and willingness to impose death sentences upon the innocent and the defenseless. Osama bin Laden was a part of the evil from which so many of us daily ask deliverance, “…but deliver us from evil.” His willingness to kill and to send others to kill necessitated his own death. But I do not want war and death to cross the line from necessity to celebration in my own heart.
It was past time for Osama bin Laden to be gone. I am glad that he has lost the power to kill. I am glad that our world is now without him. I am glad that he is dead. I do not wish he had been arrested. I do not want him to have had a voice any longer than he did. I do not want his stain on our planet to have grown any darker or to have sunk in any deeper. I am glad he is over.
Almost ten years later it is too easy to see Osama bin Laden in a war of ideologies and caught in a contest of competing worldviews. It’s very easy, after ten years of being hunted, to see him in the context of his philosophical arguments. But for those of us who are old enough to have watched the towers fall in 2001, the necessity of bin Laden’s death is not ideological, it is visceral and quite real. From watching the towers fall on live TV, to those earliest tapes of Al Qaeda beheadings of innocent people, we have seen the face of evil in this world. Of course, for the families of those who died his evil is even more real and present.
While I am glad Osama bin Laden is dead, I cannot find it in me to celebrate death, even his. I won’t sing in the streets. That just doesn’t feel right to me. But the women and men of the United States Intelligence Services and Armed Forces have my gratitude and respect. I thank them and I am proud that we have rid the world of that evil. I am glad we persevered in the face of such heavy necessity. Our people who have sacrificed and given so such much in the face of what needed to be done are our heroes and I celebrate them, their courage, their service to our nation and world, and their sacrifice to confront such evil.
I don’t condemn or mean any slight at all to those who are joyfully celebrating in the streets the death of such an evil. I’ve watched threads on Facebook in which people have “unfriended” those who will not celebrate Osama bin Laden’s death with patriotic chants, capital letters and lots of exclamation points. I’ve watched the vilification of many who simply asked something along the lines of, “Wait… am I really supposed to be a happy that death is still the best or necessary option to any problem?” We should not use this as yet another opportunity to divide and feed any hostilities. Whether you or I celebrate the man’s death, or don’t, our need for civility in discourse and conversation is as real as ever.
Here’s maybe the bottom line for many people of faith… we recognize the justice in Osama bin Laden’s death, the justness of it. We recognize the necessity of his death, we feel the relief that he is gone, and we are glad that his hatred and evil have been removed from our world. He earned that death over and over, more than 3,000 times in one day back in 1991, and many times since. But even as we recognize justice, we have been taught to hope for something greater, and that is grace. Our gladness that justice has been served is tempered by regret that grace was missed. Grace was missed so many times in the life of Osama bin Laden. He did not know grace, show grace nor bring any grace to our world.
Our faith has informed us that a better world is possible, and we still wait for it. That better world is forestalled by the evil of creatures like Osama bin Laden and the necessary sacrifice of good people to hunt and kill him.
I pray, from deep down inside, that with the passing of that evil another death dealing prophet will not stand to carry the banner forward. I pray that the great day of peace will come sooner than later for our globe. I pray that we might no longer be a species which produces such a monster and then has to wage ten years of war to find and stop him.
Filed under: Devotional Thoughts | Tags: book review, Christ, Heaven, Hell, Love Wins, Rob Bell, theology
I finished Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” over lunch today. I started it well before Easter, but then we hit the Lenten Season and Holy Week… you know how it goes. So to celebrate a great season finished, Eastertide beginning, and the kids going back to school after a fun Spring Break (WOOT!) I sat down with some Hunan Chicken, my iPad (Nook app) and Bell’s thoughts. I suck at the “simple life.”
Let me just give it to you as I think it is: With “Love Wins” Rob Bell wins.
It’s not a real scholarly read, though I think Bell has done his work in the books. It’s not a theological treatise, though I think it reflects some good theology and theological thinking. And it’s not a big enough book to answer all the great questions it poses or all the choice questions it makes you come up with on your own. And that’s a good thing, really. All in all, it’s a win.
And the critics? The ones who jumped to condemn Bell before the book was even published? Shame. Shame on them. Now that’s not to say that you have to agree with everything that Bell says or concludes. I don’t really think Bell expects all of us to agree. But it’s partly because of the divisive and judgmental voices like those earliest critics that I think Bell wrote this book. Those sometimes mean-spirited voices are often the ones framing our narrative. They are often the mixed message of love and grace until you are found wanting in some area of thought or theology, and then it’s the guillotine, baby! And yes, I spelled guillotine without any help from my spell-checker!
What is Bell trying to do? He’s trying to help us make a coherent narrative of our faith, our scriptures, our hopes and our fears. And he’s doing it in the middle of a highly connected, pluralistic world scene in which the predominant “belonging system” model of faith has not always prepared us to exist and contribute.
Do I agree with Bell? Pretty muchly yeah, I do. ‘Cause I’m very comfortable with the Cosmic Christ stuff from Fr. Rohr and I always side with C.S. Lewis on matters of substance. And because I am not terribly happy with the limitations of the belonging system faith we so often give lip service to while quietly hoping for something more, something bigger and something gorgeously unexpected.
Thank you Rob! Nicely done!
Filed under: Devotional Thoughts, Just Life | Tags: Art, Justice, Spirituality, Wild Goose Festival
Almost two years ago I’m at a conference in Albuquerque, NM, and I hear a dream being described for a festival built on the idea of allowing streams of life like art, justice and faith to freely create a nexus point, an intersection of creativity and action. Really, they had me at the word festival.
Festival is a noun that the esteemed Merriam and Webster say means “a time of celebration marked by special observances, a feast, and an often periodic celebration or program of events or entertainment having a specified focus.” (Pulled right from www.merriam-webster.com!) My imagination immediately presented me some mental images of a feast of art, an observance of justice and a celebration of what happens when we give free reign to those streams to mingle and dance together creating new things. I wanted to be there to see that, to hear that, to taste and hold it.
I volunteered to keep in touch with the dream and friended the fledgling Facebook profile, and I began to dream myself of the coming feast. Today I’m a part of the planning to make art happen at the festival. We are dreaming of canvases and paints, clay and paper. We will use our creativity to vision changes in ourselves, our communities and our world. We’ll bless the land and the people which play host to us in the four-day feast.
Making art is an a tangible expression of the spiritual streams running through our hearts and souls. Making art is presence. Whatever your past experience of art has been, we will help make an exercise of creative expression very accessible for you. This won’t be a time for seeing who is an “artist” and who isn’t, but it will be a time for each of us to dig deeper into the creative veins which God has implanted in all.
I can’t know where your hungers are or what kind of feasting you need. But I know that tables are being prepared for us. We will sit down together and share a rich fare as our faith, our dreams and needs for justice, and our creative hearts all come together for a few days in North Carolina. And if Merriam and Webster are correct, this will be just a beginning of a many more feasts to come and we make a community chasing the Wild Goose and making time together for years to come! I hope to see you there!
Filed under: Just Life | Tags: Christmas, Christmas Stories, Story Telling
SPOILER ALERT! I might ruin this song for you forever, or at least be accused of trying. If that would be the end of your world, please don’t read any further.
I know it’s an endearing moment in Elf and every duet that has ever existed has covered it, some much better than others. But is the song Baby It’s Cold Outside a bit of a guilty pleasure for anyone besides me? (the lyrics)
Christmas is a storied holiday, rich with various narratives. We of course have the birth narrative of Christ, but not satisfied with that, we invent Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch and little sidelines for the Christ story like the Little Drummer Boy. Will Farrell’s Elf is one of my favorites and a newer addition to the fun Christmas story lineup.
But is the story of Baby It’s Cold Outside really one that I want my kids humming the tune to? It’s a story of a guy using weather, booze and shmooze to further his sexual conquests with a lady friend. Really.
I know the songwriter wrote it and debuted it with his wife… and maybe it’s cutesy, innocent fun when they sang it. But I can’t help but cringe when I hear the line, “What’s the sense in hurting my pride?” What? What!? Because a man’s pride is in how many women he can seduce?
And I’m not just being an anti-sex prude here. I like sex. Really. I’m talking about a song that blithely objectifies a woman into a sexual object to be manipulated. Why do we dig on this song so much? Other than the catchy tune, it should make us sorta mad that it celebrates the use of use of booze and bad weather to maneuver a woman into that position. It also reinforces the old myth that when a woman says “no” she really means “yes,” so the guy just needs to go for it. Or at least he needs to pour her another drink, and another, and another until the answer magically becomes “yes.”
Is the song irredeemable? No, it’s probably not. It shamelessly uses the word “swell,” so it at least has that going for it. The ending is almost totally open… she could still escape! I just think that of all the Christmas stories out there, this is not the one that I want stuck in my head. But with that masterfully written tune and lyrical banter, it’s going to be stuck in there forever.
Filed under: Just Life, Social Justice | Tags: DREAM Act, Immigration, Neighborliness, Politics
I’ve had a thought steeping in my head for a while, and I need to serve it up. I’m not sure if you’ve followed the fate of the “DREAM Act” or not, but it’s an attempt to assimilate and welcome minors who were brought to our country illegally by their parents.
Now, I’m one of those political cats who can’t always decide which view to hate more, so I’m usually a little more conservative than my neighbors in DC, but am usually way more liberal than my neighbors in Alabama and Texas. I rarely have big political statements to make. A lot of people think that’s the problem with “moderates,” but at least you can’t blame us for clogging the blog-o-sphere with our rants.
Today is different for me. I have a statement to make. Opposition to the DREAM Act is not “conservative” politics, it’s the politics of punishment. I grew up in conservative geography in which I was taught a love of one’s neighbor, compassion and empathy. I grew up in conservative geography where I was taught that we are a country of many kinds of people, and that’s alright. I was raised in a conservative geography where I was taught that I am in fact “my brother’s keeper.”
So what happened to all those ideas? When did “conservative” come to mean conserving an ideological viewpoint at the price of people’s futures? When did the politics of punishment take over?
The answer is partly found in the polarizing nature of Conservative and Liberal points of view, and the necessary vilification of “the other” to win in an arena of competitive viewpoints. We simply cannot share an issue, and that’s just sad… it may be the great American weakness.
But something like the DREAM Act rolls along and suddenly we have a moment of sublime clarity… a lot of us are just pissed off, and we want to punish someone because we’re pissed. Kids? Sure, we can punish them too. And we’re blinded enough by a politics of punishment to think it’s OK to refuse a simple gesture of welcome to someone who is already our neighbor. The sadness deepens.
Go ahead and quote the reasons for wanting to punish minors who were brought to a country by decisions not their own… really, this is your time. Right here. Spill it. Say how the influx of undocumented illegal immigrants is destroying our health care system. Say that it’s overwhelming our social services. Say that it’s depleting our job pool. Say that it’s unfair to those who came here documented. I’m pausing now for you to do that.
Now, tell me that those reasons are good enough for you to reject a neighbor who was brought to our great country as a minor and knows this as their home. Tell me that even with the included requirements of education and proof of moral character in the DREAM Act, that we can’t open a door for them. Tell me that it is for all those reasons just stated that we faced our recent economic depression, collapse of banks, sky-rocketing unemployment and record setting home foreclosures. Hmmmm, you can’t. I can’t. We “legals” made that mess. Our banks made that mess. Our home lending policies and practices made that mess. We have a fine enough time designing our own demise without ferreting out the least among us to scapegoat.
Did you read up on the DREAM Act? If these kids manage to get citizenship, according to the terms of the DREAM Act, some of them will have done a whole lot more with intentionality for their citizenship than I’ve ever done for mine. (I’m whispering this part, “Or the vast majority of you.”) I was just along for the ride… oh, wait! So were they! Truth is, as minors go, they are in about the same position I was in as far as choosing where we’d call home. My neighbor is me.
We all honor those who come to our country in an open and legal process. But that’s just lip service. Have I ever found a way to help tutor someone in process for citizenship? Have I ever written a “thank you” note or a given a congratulatory gift to someone who was naturalized as a citizen in our country? Of course I haven’t. And though someone out there surely has, I’m betting the vast majority of us haven’t unless we by chance had a family member or close friend go through the process. No, we’re not galvanized into action by that to which we give lip service. We are moved by indignation.
The politics of punishment offends my ingrained Texan neighborliness. I was taught that being a neighbor meant better than that. The politics of punishment offends my sensibilities as a Christian. As one who has been shown the grace of God and heard the stories of Jesus, I am offended. I think of the servant who choses to punish another servant after witnessing the grace of One greater than he; Matthew 18:21-35. I think of the servants who have come late to the fields and are just as welcomed and paid by the owner of the fields as those who came earlier; Matthew 20:1-16. These are the stories of Jesus Christ. This is the legacy I was raised to carry forward.
So, I support the DREAM Act. Because my unintentional arrival on this continent makes me no more important than these other children who arrived here by no choice of their own. I need to work hard to love my neighbor, every neighbor. There are in fact people in this life deserving of some of the punishments that come their way, but let’s not ever let our political needs lead us deny a neighbor. That would be a fundamental mistake.
My neighbor is me. That’s how I was taught.
Filed under: Just Life | Tags: Avatar, Friends, Online, Role Play, Second Life, Virtual
So, It’s been two months since I blogged here! Sorry, eh. But I’ve been thinking about writing a little on my Second Life (SL) experience. You know, give a little history, perspective and lessons learned, as well as to share something new and cool happening online.
Real quick, you may or may not be familiar with Second Life. SecondLife.com is the website where it all gets started. You make an account, then download the viewer which let’s you interact in the online virtual worlds… it’s sort of like a web browser. You have an avatar and can dress it, edit it’s appearance and make as like your real life self or as different from your real life self as you desire. Your avatar then is your virtual presence as you explore all the various worlds which are individually referred to as “sims.”
So, I first dipped my toe in the water that is Second Life a little over four years ago. Honestly, I didn’t know anyone using SL and in no time at all I stopped logging in. Without friends to help you get started, and to make a safe place for you to learn, the online world can be rather cold and dark. I didn’t meet anyone willing to help me much, so I cruised out. I tried again about a year later with marginally better results. I jumped back in again at the first of 2010, and I’ve had a great experience this time around. And Oh, yeah… sometimes I’m a pirate! Arrrgggh!
Let’s talk real quick about something… so many people, so many, immediately crack a joke like “I don’t have time for one life, how could I take on a second?” when I mention SL. Well, we all have hobbies that require some time and effort. I don’t watch TV. Not even Glee. About the only exception to that is Survivor, and I watch it on my phone. I don’t play Halo or World of Warcraft. I don’t knit and I don’t flip houses for profit with a book I bought from the TV infomercials I never see. So, Second Life is a hobby of sorts. It’s one of the ways I have fun. But it’s also a little more at times…
SL is a hobby and a game, but it’s also social networking and friendships. My friends on SL span the globe from all parts of the US to Spain, Britain, El Salvador, Mexico, Croatia, and Finland to name a few. That’s pretty flippin’ cool if you stop and think about it. Being on SL has given me opportunities to pray with and for these friends, to learn about their little corners of the world, to let our avatars dance together, and celebrate birthdays and holidays like Thanksgiving together. Some of the friendships merge real life and Second Life and run over into Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.
But, SL is a game! There’s so much fun stuff to do… I build all kinds of things in SL like clothes, houses, boats and more. With easy drop in scripts those things I build can have some functionality, too! I even occasionally sell posters of paintings and photos that I make for decorations in SL homes. Second Life has its own currency that can be bought and sold with US Dollars. I rent land and throw parties for my friends and we play card games in SL. I also do some “role play.” I am a Jedi Knight in some sims, and a medieval archer in another. Most of you know my wife is also in SL, and we have a lot of fun together terraforming our joined islands, building and goofing off.
And one of the most interesting things I’ve done lately is to start leading Sunday services in Second Life. When I joined the medieval archery company I was told that on the sim they had a cathedral. They used to have a pastor who would lead Sunday services there, but he left SL and they had not found a replacement. I was asked to consider the work, and after a week or so of thought and prayer I agreed. As of now, I’ve hosted two services, these last two weeks. The first Sunday I had 3 people other than myself. The second Sunday there were 8 others. The picture here is me kneeling at the Cathedral before leading my first service there. That doesn’t sound like a lot of people, but it would be a great start in a real life church plant!
What’s in a SL Sunday service? Well, so far we’ve been text-based, though I might use some voice chatting later. But not everyone has the ability to chat with voice or even to hear others speaking, so I’m sticking with text for now. We share scripture, prayers, I present a message, and we have some sort of interactive element. And there’s always some conversation. This past Sunday it was amazing to hear the prayer requests that were shared… I’m praying this week for one guy’s nephew who is in the hospital, and for another person looking work, and another’s fear of homelessness… sound like real life stuff? Behind every avatar, there’s a real soul.
What’s the coolest thing about Second Life? Well, we all get to look like we want to look, so everyone is beautiful. This pic is my lovely wife’s avatar! But good looking avatars aren’t the cool part! The cool part is that when you finally figure out that the avatars really are just pixels, but that the real people behind them aren’t, then you can really start listening. Because we aren’t encumbered with one another’s physical details, we have an opportunity to better hear one another’s souls speaking. For real, you can hear the person’s heart. Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll always like what you hear, but it can be very real, and very beautiful.
That all sounds nice, but what about the drawbacks of SL? There are some very real dangers and drawbacks to Second Life. Because we don’t have the physical details of someone with whom are friends, they have an opportunity to lie, and many do. I know of someone who faked a real life death to manipulate someone else’s feelings. Some will lie and try to cheat you out of your money and worse.
Here’s how I have often described it: It’s a situation of extreme anonymity which mixes disastrously with a high degree of vulnerability. In other words, if you put your real life feelings on the line with everyone, many will hurt you. And that’s a Real Life thing as well as a Second Life thing. But there’s more, and maybe worse…
Second Life is a truly creative and interactive platform for pornography. If you struggle with pornography, and I’m talking about more than just being a guy, you do not need SL bringing you down. Your avatar can be as anatomically correct as you want it to be, and just as active sexually. Many people get into SL and then find themselves struggling with the pornographic side of it. And that brings me to something I always tell new people when I meet them in Second Life…
Don’t ever think you can do things in SL you that would never do in real life without any consequences. If you jump into Second Life and start making deep emotional investments in someone other than your spouse, you’ll get into trouble. And yes, your avatar can be married to another avatar. I’ve talked to people who intentionally explored sexual themes and practices in SL because they thought, “I’ll never do this in real life, and this is simply a virtual thing, not real.” And the next thing they know, they are suffering emotionally for their actions. The avatars may be virtual, but shame is for real. You are for real. The things in which you invest your time, your thoughts, your money, your heart and soul, become very real indeed.
So, like everything else you’ll choose for a hobby, SL has some great stuff going for it, and some really scary pitfalls to be avoided. But you’re so lucky! If you decide to join up and explore a Second Life, you’ve got a friend on the inside! Look me up, I’m Swirlyfoot Lighthouse in Second Life. Want to see some fun videos I’ve made from random days in Second Life? Check out Swirlyfoot’s YouTube channel!
Filed under: Prayer, Social Justice | Tags: bullying, dignity, hate, love, neighbors, news, tyler clementi
I am more than a little heart-sick at this story. And I’m keep the Clementi family in my prayers. Have you seen the story? The shameful treatment of a college student leads him to take his own life.
Ya know, I understand the drive to have the next big viral video. I see people everyday online trying to capture that magic, that big laugh. Some achieve a certain amount of online notoriety, and some simply tear their own dignity to shreds while hurting others in the attempt.
Think for a second about the news stories asking about the rightness of parents who post pics and vids of their toddlers with bong pipes and firearms… why? Because they want a laugh. Never caught those stories? Google it.
And amid all the grotesque stories of cyber-bullying, we have this one… a college roommate and his friend hide a camera to live stream a young man’s love life. That young man then commits suicide in shame. And it’s just all too easy. It’s too easy to plant that camera, to laugh at a friend, to Tweet and post and stream a friend for a few laughs, a few glorious moments of viral power. Tyler Clementi was sold short… his life, he himself. He was worth so very much more than the few laughs his antagonists sought.
I hope at least one person with a webcam and a stupid idea for catching an online laugh will stop and ask… “Am I trading my neighbor off for a selfish grab at a laugh or a few more views? What is my fellow human being worth?” And beyond hoping, I pray that when that person looks inside and gropes around for the answers to those questions, they’ll find love.
Oh, God! Help us love each other!
Break our hearts and teach us mercy!
Teach to pursue each other with grace!
And when we’re done praying? Well, then we have to speak and act for love! Speak and act the value and dignity of our neighbors! We have to be love, be the value and be the dignity of everyone around us! For such things our Christ has suffered the cross!
And here’s just a flashback for you 80′s fans… a song I have often sung along with and admired for it’s honest and good questioning of our need to hate…
"People Are People"
- Martin Gore, Depeche Mode
People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get
Along so awfully
People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get
Along so awfully
So we're different colours
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I've never ever met you so what could I have done
I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand
People are people...
Help me understand
Help me understand
Now you're punching
And you're kicking
And you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far it hasn't surfaced
But I'm sure it exists
It just takes a while to travel
From your head to your fists
I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand
Filed under: Just Life
I was thinking about making a huge post on the mess, but instead I’m going to share a Facebook adventure! A friend of mine posted a link to an online petition asking the people at that congregation not to burn the Qur’an on Saturday as planned. A response to the link occasioned my response, and a couple of subsequent responses… anywhoooo, I got to say most of what I wanted to blog about, lol!
Here was the posted link to the petition…
Here was the only response to the link when I saw it this morning. A person said…
I think that Paul is talking with Christians dealings with other Christians. Anyway, how does it love and serve a Mulsim to let him believe that Jesus is just one of many prophets and not The Prophet?
*Ahhh… time out! That’s not fair! That is bad exegesis and a nasty bit of bait & switch. First, it’s very weak to take a fundamental “one-another” teaching and start excluding the demographics you don’t want to love and serve. Yes, the context is a letter to Xians, but you have to want to make Paul’s “one another” only other Xians, especially as he quotes Jesus’ use of the words, “Love your neighbor.” So, boxing up a verse and dismissing it is not good handing of the Bible. Secondly, we had the subject switched to evangelism in mid conversation, and the act of not burning a Qur’an was equated with apathy about the person of Jesus. Again, not fair and not good. This is not about evangelism or making Jesus known… it’s tied up in this Florida Pastor’s method of intertwining the horrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism in general, extremist violence, national religion, a domineering view of his own faith over all others that are similarly protected in our nation, and his warped idea of what clearly communicates the love of God.
So, I replied…
Thanks for letting me blog on your wall, [name removed]!
Hahahahahaha! Much love!
OK, friends and family. I’m going to share a dream with you that I’ve always felt is too big for me, and so I’ve not chased it or even started to make it a reality. But I feel the need to lay it out here and to know if I need to take some beginning steps with it…
When I lived in Kenya back in 1989 and 1990 I was aware of the HIV/AIDS problem in Sub-Saharan Africa in an intellectual way, but not an intimate way. It was not something I saw among the Giryama people, but only caught glimpses of in the haunted eyes of coastal prostitutes who shuffled the streets of Malindi and Mombasa.
When my family lived and worked in Tanzania some years later I was introduced to the problem in far more personal ways. I was often asked to drive someone in from the rural areas to the urban hospital, usually to die. They would be suffering from the multiple, debilitating diseases that often afflict poor souls in the last stages of their body’s battle with AIDS. I was asked to drive for a couple of funerals, including the funeral of a good friend’s aunt who died from AIDS related diseases. She was first person with whom I sat holding hands and praying in those final, painful days.
It took some years to process these experiences. I have rarely spoken of them. Really, it was almost five years later when sitting in a coffee shop back Stateside (as I am at this moment) that I thought, “Why have I not talked more about this? Why have I not wept more for this? Why have I not done anything about this?” And a dream began taking shape in my heart and mind for a way to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This thought also rolled into view about the same time something else really clicked for me for the first time… it’s this… Have you ever realized the untapped potential for global change buried in the wealth of Western Christianity? I know that money is not the blanket panacea for all our planet’s woes, but stop and think about it for a moment. I know we as Christians give a lot of money locally and globally… but also stop and think about how much we have left over after that giving! Do we have enough to really break into the cycle of disease and poverty in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa? I began to suspect that we do, especially as I took a look at the discretionary spending going on in the life at that time of this “poor” in-between-jobs-at-the-time pastor (me). And we won’t mention the discretionary spending I waste these days as a currently employed pastor, for the shame of it.
I started reading and looking around and discovered that it cost only about a $1 a day to supply the needed antiretroviral medicines to an infected person in Sub-Saharan Africa, and I’ve lately read that the cost has dropped to only $88 annual! My beloved people, that’s chump change to us, but an unreachable goal for the vast majority of these infected neighbors of ours who are trying to hold families together, maybe accomplish year-round subsistence farming, keep kids in school and often have to walk miles a day with their associated secondary diseases just to fetch clean water.
It’s time for a longer story made shorter… here’s my vision: “I dream of making a nonprofit that is built on a model being a hybrid of the very successful and productive models of Heifer International and Compassion International which will inform and organize individuals and other organizations into a purchasing power for cheaply made antiretroviral medicines from India, and then will oversee the delivery and distribution of those needed medicines on the ground in clinical sites across the hardest hit and neediest parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. We select the sites on the African Continent, purchase the drugs, and then insure their delivery and distribution to the people.”
And here’s the big “Why?” Why do this? We should know that HIV/AIDS is not just a health issue, but also a social issue and a family issue, a parental issue, child issue and a poverty issue. A steady available supply of antiretroviral medicine will keep countless individuals alive, and saving lives is result enough. But it gets better! When we help save a mother or a father from from an early AIDS related death, we can help keep a family intact. We can give the gift of having parents back to a potential orphan! We enable a mother and/or a father to keep working and thereby support their family. This serves a family unit and helps keep a local economy moving! And whole family units are better equipped to survive and thrive in ways like sending their children to school instead of needing them in the fields all day. We can have an educational impact! And when an infected mother is on a regimen of antiretroviral medicine the rate of transmission of the HIV virus to her child at birth is drastically reduced. We can have an impact on transmission rates!
Did you follow all that? Potentially, for $88 dollars a year per God-created-and-loved, precious human soul, any one of us or all of us can help keep people stay alive, help keep families together, help have a positive impact on poverty and local economies, and help cut HIV transmission rates! This is a response with a near total impact on the spectrum of problems connected to HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa!
I have to stop now and let my heart rate return to normal…
I believe that the heart of God beats in this kind of vision, but I’m terrified, excited and overwhelmed every time I speak it. I am weak, and I am an individual. There are other issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in Africa, and I not ignorant of them. I have first-hand seen and know how a lack of education contributes to the spread of HIV. I have seen first-hand and know how rampant sexually activity, sometimes even aided by cultural or religious norms, has contributed to the spread of HIV. I don’t dismiss those issues, but countless programs are addressing them, and neither issue causes me a moment’s pause in wanting to help people stay alive, to keep families together, to help parents keep working, to enable children to get an education, or to help cut HIV transmission rates to children at birth.
As thrilled and humbled as I am each time I stop my usual business and think on these things, I am equally baffled at what to do next or if to do anything at all. So I sincerely ask you for help. What should I do? What are your thoughts? You who know me… Where should I turn or go, or what should I do next? Do I give our God a vow and a plea to make this happen and then start working on the realities of it? Thank you, for any thoughts, prayers and consideration you can give me with these questions.
Want to read some stuff or pick up some info on the issues of HIV/AIDS in Africa and beyond? Here’s a short list of some great sites and places where you might start… and I’ll just especially plug the AVERT site, it’s amazing…
http://www.avert.org/
http://www.undp.org/hiv/publications/issues/english/issue27e.html
http://www.unaids.org/en/CountryResponses/Regions/SubSaharanAfrica.asp
Again, thanks for your time with this… and with all peace,
~Todd
