Out of rocks - Pastor John Rutsindintwarane and hope in Rwanda

Hi - Last night I got together with a group of people I'd traveled to Rwanda with 3 yrs ago. We were there to hear Rwanda Pastor John Rutsindintwarane give updates on the Lutheran Church in Rwanda and their community organizing efforts.

This is a photo we took 3 yrs ago of the rocks that the community was just starting to crush to make a foundation for a health clinic. Now it is built.

It's impressive in any community with zero financial resources to have built a health clinic. But more impressive is that it took place in a village with no road, no prior access to governmental power, very little education, in a time when their nation was still reeling from a brutal genocide.

It would have been easy to look at that community and write them off as having nothing. Instead, Pastor John identified what they did have. Hope, courage, relationships, common good, and abiding faith in God. They also had an amazing organizer and pastor.

John Rutsindintwarane said he came to give them his mind and his heart. It's his generousity of spirit, faith in God, and belief that people are good more than bad that pulled this clinic together.

Hearing John speak last night, I felt some glimmer that this might have been what it felt like to hear the first disciples talk. They were ordinary people, much like the citizens of Mumeya, pulled into something greater than themselves. They were given hope and love and faith and a person to make them belive it. John shines with God's light and love. You can't help but feel hopeful and faithful in his presence.

The evening ended with us all holding hands. One by one, we praying our blessings on Pastor John, his wife Robin, and their amazing ministry in Rwanda.

I felt my own faith stir. This morning, I feel it rising up as I am deeply aware of a kind of love in the world that is unending.

Vacation...from God?

Two weeks ago I was NY with the high school youth group. It was all about Jesus, faith in action, and Christian love. Faith was explicit and intentional. It was great, but I was exhausted by the end.

Last week, I took off on a much needed vacation. I spent it on the beach in South Carolina for a big family reunion.

If the week in NY was all about explicit faith, the week with my family was the opposite. My extended family runs the spectrum of church-i-ness. We occasionally prayed before we ate, but most talk of God or faith was cousin-ly checking-in about my profession and daily life.

On vacation with 40 of my family members, I took a bit of a vacation from God.

I brought my daily devotional book, my Bible, and a heavy stack of articles and books to read. But I read pure beach pulp. Didn't crack open my Bible, and missed a whole week of daily devotionals. I'm not sure I ever prayed, except in the way that playing in the water or appreciating the beauty of moonlight on the ocean is prayer.

I came back Sat afternoon, but I was still on vacation from work. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to check out another church - maybe the McLean Bible Church or to pop in on worship at a former congregation. But when Sunday morning rolled around, I did something I haven't done for a long time: I skipped church.

Went to brunch with one of my best friends instead. And I have to say, it was pleasant - I understand why people do that. In fact it was so pleasant, that I began to wonder if I could slip into a life where faith and my church community were in the background or, perhaps, not present at all.

The question on my mind that morning wasn't "why don't people go to church." Rather, it was "why do they go at all?"

By Sunday afternoon, hanging out with other friends, the conversation had turned to community, living for something larger than yourself, a meaningful life, music and the elevation of the soul. For me, God is present in that mix.

It was pleasant to skip church, and pleasant to take a bit of a vacation from the daily routine which includes the daily routine of prayer and scripture.

But the time away is still time spent with God in laughter and appreciation and love. God is present, just less explicit. I know that I will always be drawn back into Christian community. Without it, my life would feel hollow. I would start to hunger and thirst for it. For God.

I woke up this morning eager to pray and to put my life explicitly back in the context of God, church, and faith. I'm grateful for a great vacation, but even more grateful for the life I return to.

Gone gone gone...to workcamp

Been racing around lately - I've been missing blogging, but am afraid I won't get to it anytime soon - will be on a mission trip to rural New York State with our high school youth. Follow our trip. Peace and joy - Pr Sarah

There's a big difference between dying for a cause and killing for a cause

Last week, an abortion doctor was killed while passing out bulletins in his Lutheran church when an anti-abortion activist shot him.

Today, a security guard at the Holocaust museum was killed on duty when a white supremacist shot him.

I find both murders appalling. They are different events, of course, but they seem related. According to Washington Post press coverage, a reporter also linked these two events, asking the White House if they are concerned about "political violence or domestic terrorism."

I was curious to see if anyone would pick up on the word terrorism to describe these murders. It's a loaded term, for sure, but I'm glad it isn't only reserved for Muslim foreigners or people of Middle-Eastern descent. Here's terrorism, as defined by that reliable source, wikipedia,

Terrorism is a policy or ideology of violence intended to intimidate or cause terror for the purpose of "exerting pressure on decision making by state bodies." The term "terror" is largely used to indicate clandestine, low-intensity violence that targets civilians and generates public fear.

Here's a different definition of a terrorist: a person willing to kill for a social or political ideal. This is decidedly anti-christian, because we are, by definition, people who claim a willingness to DIE for our beliefs, not kill for them. (If you're wondering when we do this, we do this when we pledge to follow Jesus, knowing that means we follow him to the cross.)

Of course, the waters muddy. One of our Lutheran heroes, Detrich Bonhoeffer, made a tortured decision to try to kill Hitler in order to stop him. He failed and he was killed in a concentration camp.

Ethics classes around the world analyze Bonhoeffer's decision and most (at least the ones I've been in) find him to be a saint and justify his actions as the best possible choice to stop the murders. Those communities also acknowledge that the holocaust was a real, evil, and horrendous chapter in history. I'm betting those folks in the world who deny the holocaust aren't making Bonhoeffer a hero.

I can't imagine the white supremacist can come up with any good way to convince any but the most hateful people that his murder was justified. But I can see the abortionist murderer using Bonhoeffer-esque logic to justify his actions. and if we all agreed that abortion was as horrendous as the Holocaust (and some people feel this way), would his action be justified? I don't think we can put abortion on par with the Holocaust, I'm just trying to point out that anytime you are called to kill for a cause, it gets thorny fast.

When my head starts to hurt about things like this, I look for simple answers. Do you think it would work to just get rid of all the guns????

West Bank Story - the anti-crusade - at Wootton tonight

Last night I went to see West Bank Story at Wootton High school. It's the first stage adaptation of the movie based on West Side Story, based on Romeo and Juliet. You can guess the plot...a Jewish boy falls in love with a Palestinian girl but their families, owners of competing falafel stands, would never approve.

The actual musical was maybe 20 mins long. The students just gave a flavor, but it was enough. Left you wanting more.

The students augmented the production with an Israeli storyteller and a moving slide show with live music.

The best thing about the evening, besides the fact that these kids are ridiculously talented, was that it was completely student run. If you need a little bit of hope about the future, these kids will give it. Many of them are seniors, which means they graduated on Wed and then put on this production the next day. It also means they didn't do it to build a resume for college or to better their chances of getting into the next musical. They did it just because they care about peace in the Middle East.

It's just one more night, tonight, Friday June 5th, at Wootton High School at 7:30. 5$. You won't be disappointed.

Go Crusa.....I just can't get behind the cheer

My college mascot was the Crusaders. When a few of us complained once that we were ashamed to be associated with such a violent and shamefully un-Christian slice of history, the administration answered - oh, but we're not the Crusaders...we're the Crusaders for Christ.

Somehow that was supposed to make a difference.

I never felt good yelling that cheer. If being a Christian meant taking on some kind of violent mantle for the good of the cause, I want nothing to do with it.

Though we don't call them crusades, many people argue that we're in the middle of a crusader-like culture, where a certain brand of Christianity and the world-view that accompanies it blesses violence in order to get the point across. The violence is as large as a war with anti-Islamic overtones; as complex and lamentable as an abortion doctor being shot in his Lutheran church; and as subtle as someone assuming the Jewish students in her class are rich.

Crusades bless violence. Jesus did not.

Last night I met with some of the college students from our church. We're going to meet every Wed night at 9:00 pm throughout the summer.

Among other things we'll explore what it means to be Christian in a world where people you live with, your best friends and in some cases, some of your family members, aren't.

This question comes up all the time around here. Adults and kids are asking it in various forms It came up in President Obama's speech about US relations with the Muslim world yesterday. It will come up tonight when high school students from our church, working with an inter-faith group of kids,will put on a production about Peace in the Mid East called West Bank Story. It just came up in a casual pastoral conversation with one of our church leaders. And it came up yesterday in an inter-faith conversation about the environment.

I can't imagine we'll get to the bottom of anything in the Wed night discussions, but I hope we will be able to grow in our own faiths while also growing in our ability to love and respect others.

Confessions of an online introvert.

I haven't blogged for over a week. Not that there haven't been topics - from the church's yard sale, to the musings of my head and heart, to the events of the world. But I haven't felt an ounce of inspiration to write on this blog and I think I know why.

Last week, whenever I was in my office, there were other people around working on the Yard Sale. If I were going to connect with people, I wanted to be with the live church and not the online church.

I'm a fairly strong introvert - I like lots of alone time (just ask the best friend who just moved in with me, or any of the people who work with me).

But I also love people. Given the choice between sitting in front of my computer connecting with people versus talking with living people outside my door, and I'll generally (though not always) choose the live ones.

This blog, I love writing it, but I'm beginning to realize that I might not ever be someone who finds online community totally fulfilling. For instance, I appreciate facebook and know it is an amazing way for people to connect, but I find it mostly exhausting.

I think I like online community only when it enables or connects with a live community. I used facebook the most the few weeks after my family got back from vacation. We all relived our time together on facebook. And then as the memories faded, so did our facebooking.

It's made me wonder how personalities in live communities translate to personalities in on-line communities. Do people who twitter the most also connect face-to-face people the most? Do people with the most facebook friends also have the most friends in real life? Are bloggers extroverts in a way traditional writers usually aren't? Or don't these categories translate online?

Just a few thoughts...Will write more in the next few days, I hope...and hey, I'd love to hear your thoughts.