If you’re like me and have traveled very much at all, you’ve likely stumbled upon instances in time, generally between the stubborn language barrier and the annoyance of pushy tuk tuk drivers, when all that is right in the world coalesces for just a moment, and you’re left breathless, wide-eyed, dying to know if anyone else is noticing the magic. In these moments you experience - you taste - something of perfection.

Of course, while traveling you also experience moments of aching loneliness, if you’re anything like me, because those who wander off the beaten path in life must be prepared to go it alone, perhaps for only a season, we can hope, but alone nonetheless. In these times, more than anything, more than a million dollars, all you want is to all of a sudden find yourself in the company of those you love, who also remarkably love you.

Maybe it isn’t surprising that on journeys travelers experience both magic and loneliness, but it can be perplexing to discover that these moments are often one and the same. But one and the same they are, because when you happen upon something inherently and unequivocally good, something in you demands that it be shared with those you love.

Last year in October, I went to the beach in Cambodia by myself for the weekend. By night I slept in a simple bungalow with a bed and a bare light bulb, and by day I sat in the open-air beachside bar, reading, writing, staring out at the Gulf of Thailand, sipping on a banana and coconut milkshake. As Day said hello to Dusk, who then ushered Evening into our midst, the staff at the bar set candles out on the tables and my milkshake was replaced with white wine. I sat there in the beachside bar with the seabreeze swirling lightly around, sipping on my Chardonnay - surrounded by strangers from Europe and Australia I would never talk to, who would also never talk to me, along with the Asian waiters and waitresses who had lived all their days in this lazy beach town. In this moment, all was well; all was right. And yet there was the emptiness. It was the same emptiness I had felt in other magical places in other parts of the world. If only, I kept thinking, if only. This is too good. It shouldn’t be kept to myself.

But of course you don’t need to travel to know what I mean. God in his grace is always slipping bits of goodness into the tedium of our days and the darkness of our nights, and these graces are ours for the taking, for the enjoying, if we’ll only reach out and accept them, not as rights, but as undeserved gifts. And it’s not entirely uncommon, even among otherwise self-seeking creatures like you and I, to respond to the receiving of an undeserved gift not by hoarding or devouring but in some unexplainable way by turning around and extending to others an undeserved gift of their own, and to do so with next to no rational thought and yet with all the firm resolve in the world.

I don’t think it’s an accident that God has placed us in real places to live our lives among real people, just as I don’t think it’s an accident he slipped a bit of goodness into my life on the beach that night in Sihanoukville. And I certainly don’t think it’s an accident that he has slipped bits and pieces of goodness into your life here and there, amidst the tedium and chaos and darkness and distraction and unknowns of it all, and I’m guessing that these bits of goodness in your life have in all likelihood at least occasionally been accompanied by aches of loneliness, reminders that gifts are not to be enjoyed alone.

May we heed the reminders, friends. And as we delve deeper and deeper into the mutual enjoyment of these God-given bits of goodness, may we not forget those for whom these doses of goodness might at least appear to be fewer and farther between, for whom the communal enjoyment of God’s goodness is not yet a reality.

[a letter to friends, originally via email]

Like you, I normally cringe when someone sends me an email asking me to get on board with the latest cause or boycott. Then I hit delete and curse the day I gave out my email address in the first place. Rest assured, I promise not to become a mass forwarder of worthless emails, but I wanted to warn you up front that this particular message concerns a cause (though hopefully not a worthless one), and if your conscience prohibits you from reading further, I understand.

With that said, I have limited the recipients to those I feel would at least consider acting upon what follows. Those who know me (congrats, you qualify!) know I am particularly passionate about certain things I consider to be important, and one of those things is extreme poverty. I know it is probably annoying most of the time, and I certainly don’t enjoy being an annoyance, but I can say with a rare confidence that I’m with God on this one, and that should count for something. The Bible has more to say about how the rich treat the poor than it does about heaven and hell (though matters of both economy and eternal destiny are sometimes mentioned in the same passage), which leads us to believe that while our eternal destiny matters very much, poverty and justice are very important in the scheme of things here and now. And in a world where all too many of us are dying of obesity or drug addictions while vast numbers are at the same time dying for lack of food or water or access to basic life-saving drugs, common sense should force us to pay attention (even if, to be blunt, we have grown numb to certain passages in the Bible).

Doing something about extreme poverty is less about charity than it is about doing what is right and just. Good people disagree on what should be done, but we must all consider on a very personal, practical level what God requires of us: “To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

And while the goings on all around us every day remind us that we certainly can’t and shouldn’t count on the government to fix everything in the world, it seems to me that as dual citizens, both of the Kingdom of God (which lasts forever) and of the most powerful nation on earth (which lasts for a moment), we ought to speak up for those God is particularly concerned with – those considered “the least of these.”

It may strike you as way too early to be concerned about the next presidential election since it is still a year away, but as the candidates develop their platforms and tell us why we should vote for them, are they aware that in order to get our vote they’re going to have to let us know they are committed to using their position to fight for justice and to do what’s right? As a member of the ONE Campaign, I just sent a message urging the 2008 presidential candidates to go on the record and tell us exactly where they stand on extreme poverty and global disease, because to me, this issue is neither optional nor peripheral. If you deem it worthwhile, you can do likewise at the ONE: On The Record site.

Thanks for your consideration and your action.

A co-conspirator in the justice-doing, kindness-loving, humble God-follower movement,

Tim

I used to call myself an aspiring writer. I have since dropped the aspiring part. Aspiring still describes my status as an author, but even today I am a writer. Writing is not my full-time job, but I like to write, so - stroke of genius! - why not write about my full-time job from time to time?

Today, let’s discuss lunch. I have a routine, more or less. Or a few routines. Tuesdays and Fridays, of course, are Market Days. As I have written previously, there is a little something I like to call the Trifecta, which involves two meat samosas, two chicken fajitas, and a number five smoothie which contains the remnants of many a deliciously mutilated fruit. That’s Tuesday and Friday. The other days of the week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, are a little less nailed down, but generally involve either Speed’s Subs next door or Brisas del Caribe, the Dominican place a block away. Occasionally I’ll go for a Reuben at Isaac’s or even General Tso’s at Good Taste Chinese (the latter only when I am feeling up for amazingly tasty food that will then sit like a greasy brick in my stomach for the rest of the day).

All that to say that today was a Speed’s day. Small meatball sub, American cheese. $3.50 including tax. Jerry makes a wicked meatball sub, I should have you know. But even the best meatball sub, as you can imagine, is messy. And messy food is risky business.

Moments ago said risk backfired.

As I leaned forward at my desk to take a bite of the first half of the sub - slowly, savoring its goodness - one meatball, fearing for its life no doubt, slipped out the other side. It happened in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. First it landed on my lap, right where my untucked blue collared shirt meets my brown corduroy pants (as if it couldn’t choose one or the other!). Next it ricocheted off the arm of my chair, gunking it up, before landing smack dab on my navy blue zippered hooded sweatshirt lying on the carpeted floor beside me.

The upside, if there is one, is that a meatball sitting on a sweatshirt is still fair game, whereas a meatball on the floor is off limits.

In what has become a bit of a seasonal tradition, my 2007 autumn mix is now available for popular consumption. If you’d like to get your ears on “Can’t Stop The Seasons,” let me know. If we’re friends you could call me on the phone. And if you’re lucky I might throw in a special bonus mix which has been appropriately titled “Jesus Had Long Hair Too!: A Tribute to CCM (1980-1999).”

I’m heading up a book discussion blog kind of thing called Inside Out People in conjunction with Student Ministries at Calvary Church. Believing that we are changed on the inside and that this ought to show on the outside, we are seeking to reach outside the walls of the church building and into our community in practical ways. I invite you to join us for our first book discussion as we read Good News and Good Works by Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action. It is our hope that beyond reading and discussing we will begin living inside out lives for the glory of God and the good of others.

From across the coffee shop, I observe a middle-aged woman with dark-rimmed glasses and a button-down blouse. After ordering an in-house mug and a scone, or whatever middle-aged women eat for breakfast, she goes over to the counter with the five different pots of coffee, takes a step back to compensate for her now-less-than-perfect eyesight, shifts her weight to the right leg and turns her head slightly. She pushes down the lever and all throughout the coffee shop you hear the air coming out along with the few remaining drops of coffee in the pot. She pushes it down several more times. Then she glances over at the bar and the cashier and makes her way in that direction. Still two or three paces away, she leans towards the barista and, with the now-splattered mug in one hand she points up (though she intends to point at the pots behind her) and says, as if whispering, but in a completely audible voice, “The yirgacheffe is all.”

That’s right: “The. Yirgacheffe. Is. All.”

This is how Lancastrians speak. Even the high society organic-fair-trade coffee drinkers among us, who are careful to e-nun-ci-ate every syllable of the very exotic, very swanky word yirgacheffe, speak this way.

To say that something is all is to say it is gone, used up, heretofore nonexistent. And it should be noted that this phrase, intended as a statement, ends with what sounds suspiciously like the sort of voice inflection that, in most corners of the English-speaking world, is reserved for questions.

“The yirgacheffe is all?”

It occurs to me as I sip on my own cup of yirgacheffe that maybe, just maybe, this phrase I ponder - this mostly nonsensical but in this situation completely understood statement-question hybrid - has never been spoken before in the history of the planet.

These, I realize, are among the just deserts of waking up early and going to the coffee shop in an attempt to become a born again morning person.

“Creed” by Steve Turner

This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there’s something in
horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same–
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it’s compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

“Chance” a post-script

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

an important poem by Vincent Harding

I

I had a dream.
And I saw a city,
A city that rose up out of the crust of the earth.
And it’s streets were paved with asphalt,
And a river of dirty water ran down along it’s curbs.
It was a city
And its people knew no hope.
They were chased and herded from place to place by the churning jaws of bulldozers.
They were closed up in the anonymous cubicles of great brick prisons called housing projects.
They were forced out of work by the fearsome machines,
And by the sparseness of their learning.
They were torn into many pieces by the hostile angers of racial fears and guilt and prejudice.
Their workers were exploited.
Their children and teen-agers had no parks to play in.
No pools to swim in,
No space in crowded rooms to learn in,
No hopes to dream in,
And the people knew no hope.

Their bosses underpaid them.
Their landlords overcharged them.
Their churches deserted them.
And all of life in the city seemed dark and wild, like a jungle,
A jungle lined with asphalt.
And the people sat in darkness

II

I had a dream,
And I saw a city,
A city clothed in neon-lighted darkness.
And I heard men talking.
And I looked at them.
Across their chests in large, golden letters—written by their own hands—
Across their chests were written the words:
“I am a Christian.”
And the Christians looked at the city and said;
“How terrible…How terrible…How terrible.”
And the Christians looked at the city and said:
“That is no place to live,
But some of our people have wandered there,
And we must go and rescue them.
And we must go and gather them, like huddled sheep into a fold;
And we will call it a City Church.”
So they built their church.
And the people came,
And they walked past all the weary, broken, exploited, dying men who lined the city’s streets.
Year after year they walked past,
Wearing their signs: “I am a Christian.”

Then one day the people in the church said:
“This neighborhood is too bad for good Christians.
Let us go to the suburbs where God dwells, and build a church there.
And one by one they walked away, past all the weary, broken, exploited, dying men.
They walked fast.
And did not hear a voice that said:
“…the least of these…the least of these…”
And they walked by, and they went out, and they built a church.
The church was high and lifted up, and it even had a cross.
But the church was hollow,
And the people were hollow,
And their hearts (their hearts?) were hard as the asphalt streets of the jungle.

III

I had a dream.
And I saw a city,
A city clothed in bright and gaudy darkness.
And I saw more men with signs across their chest.
And they were Christians too.
And I heard them say:
“How terrible…how terrible…how terrible.
The city is filled with sinners:
To save sinners,
To save sinners.
But they are so unlike us,
So bad,
So dark,
So poor,
So strange,
But we are supposed to save them…
To save them,
To save them.”
And one man said:
“Can’t we save them without going where they are?”
And they worked to find a way to save and be safe at the same time.
Meanwhile, I saw them build a church,
And they called it a Mission,
A City Mission:
And all the children came by to see what this was.
And the city missionaries who had been sent to save them gathered them in.
So easy to work with children, they said,
And they are so safe, so safe.
And week after week they saved the children
(Saved them from getting in their parent’s way on Sunday morning).
And in the dream the City Missionaries looked like Pied Pipers, with their long row of children stretched out behind them,
And the parents wondered in Christianity was only for children.
And when the missionaries finally came to see them, and refused to sit in their broken chair, and kept looking at the plaster falling, and used a thousand words that had no meaning, and talked about rescuing them from hell while they were freezing in the apartment, and asked them if they were saved, and walked out into their shiny care, and drove off to their nice, safe neighborhood—
When that happened, the parents knew;
This version of Christianity had no light for their jungle.
Then, soon, the children saw too; it was all a children’s game;
And when they became old enough they got horns of their own,
And blew them high and loud,
And marched off sneering, swearing, into the darkness.

IV

I had a dream,
And I saw the Christians in the dark city,
And I heard them say:
“We need a revival to save these kinds of people.”
And they rented the auditorium,
And they called in the expert revivalist,
And every night all the Christians came, and heard all the old, unintelligible, comfortable words, and sang all the old assuring songs, and went through all the old motions when the call was made.
Meanwhile, on the outside,
All the other people waited impatiently in the darkness for the Christians to come out, and let the basketball game begin.

V

I had a dream.
And I saw Christians with guilty consciences,
And I heard them say:
“What shall we do?
What shall we do?
What shall we do?
These people want to come to OUR church,
To OUR church.”
And someone said:
“Let’s build a church for THEM,
For THEM,
They like to be with each other anyway.”
And they started the church,
And the people walked in.
And for a while, as heads were bowed in prayer, they did not know.
But then, the prayers ended,
And they people looked up, and looked around,
And saw that every face was THEIR face,
THEIR face,
And every color was THEIR color,
THEIR color.
And they stood up, and shouted loudly within themselves:
“Let me out of this ghetto, this pious, guilt-built ghetto.”
And they walked out into the darkness,
And the darkness seemed darker than ever before,
And the good Christians looked, and said,
“These people just don’t appreciate what WE do for THEM.”

VI

And just as the night seemed darkest, I had another dream.
I dreamed that I saw young men walking,
Walking into the heart of the city, into the depths of the darkness.
They had no signs, except their lives.
And they walked into the heart of the darkness and said:
“Let us live here, and work for light.”
They said, “Let us live here and help the rootless find a root for their lives.
Let us live here, and help the nameless find their names.”
They said, “Let us live here and walk with the jobless until they find work.
Let us live here, and sit in the landlord’s office until he gives more heat and charges less rent.”
They said, “Let us live here, and throw open the doors of this deserted church to all the people of every race and class;
Let us work with them to find the reconciliation God has brought.”
And they said, “Let us walk the asphalt streets with the young people, sharing their lives, learning their language, playing their sidewalk, backyard games, knowing the agonies of their isolation.”
And they said, “Let us live here, and minister to as many men as God gives us grace,
Let us live here,
And die here, with out brothers of the jungle,
Sharing their apartments and their plans.”
And the people saw them,
And someone asked who they were,
A few really knew—
They had no signs—
But someone said he thought they might be Christians,
And this was hard to believe, but the people smiled;
And a little light began to shine in the heart of the asphalt jungle.

VII

Then in my dream I saw young men,
And I saw the young men and women
Those who worked in the city called Chicago,
Cleveland,
Washington,
Atlanta,
And they were weary,
And the job was more than they could bear alone,
And I saw them turn, turn and look for help,
And I heard them call:
“Come and help us,
Come and share this joyful agony, joyful agony,
Come as brothers in the task,
Come and live and work with us,
Teachers for the crowded schools,
Doctors for the overflowing clinics,
Social workers for the fragmented families,
Nurses for the bulging wards,
Pastors for the yearning flocks,
Workers for the fighting gangs,
Christians.
Christians who will come and live here,
Here in the heart of the darkness,
Who will live here and love here that a light might shine for all.
Come.”

I heard them call,
And I saw the good Christians across the country,
And their answers tore out my heart.
Some said, “There isn’t enough money there.”
Some said, “It’s too bad there. I couldn’t raise children.”
Some said, “I’m going into foreign missions, where things aren’t quite so dark.”
Some said, “The suburbs are so nice.”
Some said, “But I like it here on the farm.”
Some said,
Some said…
And one by one they turned their backs and began to walk away.
At this moment my dream was shattered by the sound of a great and mighty whisper, almost a pleading sound;
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am hungry in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am thirsty in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am a stranger in this asphalt jungle.”
And a voice said, “Come, help me, for I have been stripped naked, naked of all legal rights and protection of the law, simply because I am black in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for my heart is sick with hopelessness and fear in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, live with me in the prison of my segregated community, and we will break down the walls together.”

And the voices were many,
And the voice was one,
And the Christians knew whose Voice it was.
And they turned,
And their faces were etched with the agonies of decisions.
And the dream ended.
But the voice remains,
And the voices remain,
And the city still yearns for light.
And the Kind who lives with the least of his brothers in the asphalt jungle…
Yearns for us.

“ The whole enterprise — there are examples on the right and left — of asking “What Would Jesus Do?” on the earned-income tax credit or missile defense is presumptuous. Jesus, were he around again in the flesh, would probably be doing sensible things such as healing the sick, embracing outcasts and preaching sacrificial love. After all, he showed little interest in issuing a “Contract With the Roman Empire.” But his followers eventually found that “love your neighbor” had political consequences, leading them to challenge slavery, infanticide and the mistreatment of women and children.“

…from The Washington Post article The Gospel of Obama.