notes from Zimbabwe

The following is a note from Melissa Maher, a beloved sister in community who is spending the last part of summer in Zimbabwe. Please keep praying for Melissa and her friend Janine as they seek to be agents of the Kingdom coming in that place:
___________________________________________________________

This week in morning devotionals, one of the mothers at the orphanage read from Ecclesiastes 3 which speaks of the various seasons or times of life. A time to plant, a time to harvest...and the list goes on. It was a very timely verse for the events of the last two weeks. Janine and I have sat with families and seen there is a time to laugh and a time to mourn or weep.
A Time to Laugh: with the children at the orphanage, with friends I met last summer, and with my friend Janine.
A Time to Mourn: In the last week, three people that Project HOPE and Fairfield Orphanage worked closely with passed away--difficult losses for everyone here.

This email I would like to tell you about two Shona words I have not only learned to say but have lived or experienced.
Chema--to offer condolences to a family after someone has passed away, usually in the form of a financial donation.
Kumusha--to go home, usually refers to the rural home area of a family.

Chema is collected by the community and given to the family to assist in funeral costs and particularly in helping to pay for the meal that is prepared at the funeral. The family of the one who passed away prepares a meal for everyone who attends the funeral (which can be 100 people or more).
We received news of the death of Mai Maposa last Thursday (7/20). It was an unexpected call for we had just learned that she was sick and not feeling well. We made plans to go and visit her in the next week. However, the situation was more serious than we had heard. She passed away in her home that afternoon. We went the following day to say "Sorry" to the family, which is customary to do. Friends and family members travel to the home of the family to say sorry, to cry with them, to sing hymns with them, and to stay with them through the night or until the funeral. We were unable to go to the funeral because we were leaving town for the weekend to go and visit a friend...so going to say sorry was important because Mai Maposa was one of the most faithful and hard working health care workers that assisted with the project. She was an honest woman who loved the Lord and labored tirelessly for orphans (even caring for four orphans in her home, in addition to her own family). Her death was hard news to bear but her presence and impact in the community will always live on.

Monday (7/24) we received news that Prieska Chapitoka passed away. She was one of the mothers at the orphanage...about my age. I met her last time and was so impressed with her faith in the Lord and her depth and commitment to prayer. She had been sick with stomach cancer for over a month and had been in the hospital and endured two operations. I saw her the day after I arrived because she had been transferred to a hospital in Harare. She was so thin and in a lot of pain. We prayed for her and hoped the cancer would be healed. Unfortunately, she became too weak and could not fight anymore. She leaves behind a son, Tendai, and a mother, two sisters and a brother. Janine and I attended her funeral in kumusha on Wednesday which lasted from the morning until dusk. Many people came to pay honor to this beautiful woman who gave so much.Tuesday, we received news of the death of Mildred, one of the children at the orphanage who was living at an institution in Bulawayo. She had epilepsy and passed away due to a seizure. Her curiosity for life and energy will always be remembered.

Lastly, Janine and I traveled to kumusha to visit a friend. Mai Mutasa accepted a job as a nurses aid in a rural village named Nyamombe...there is a clinic, housing for the two nurses and a river! There are few homes in the area and Mai Mutasa is lonely...so our visit was very timely! We also traveled with Monicah, Terrance and Trinity (her sister and two sons). There is no electricity or running water so we fetched fire wood, water and cooked over fire! Quite an experience and a true Zimbabwean experience to be able to visit a rural area.

The next two weeks we will be busy visiting people and continuing meetings with those at the mission as Project HOPE seeks to expand and organize in such a way that there is local leadership and accountability. Please continue to pray for all of those involved in the decision making! May the Lord's will be done and those who need assistance continue to be helped. For the Lord desires us to love mercy, seek justice and walk humbly...through His strength, we will be able to. As July comes to an end, may we reflect on the blessings and hardships of the month and be grateful that in both, we have One who walks with us.
Love,
Melissa

going green in the bluegrass

this is a great new local development
www.bluegrassgreendirectory.org

from the website...
Bluegrass Energy & Green Living Directory
The first thing we want to do is to explode any notion that Kentuckians on the whole are somehow not “environmentally concerned”. The Kentucky General Assembly has mandated that a survey be conducted every 5 years to determine the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the citizens of the Commonwealth. Some key findings are as follows:
96% of Kentuckians say that knowing about environmental problems is important
92% of Kentuckians agree that: “It is possible to both protect the environment and have a strong economy”
63% of Kentuckians are willing to pay more for goods and services in order to protect the environment

Science and God's people

good article from the NY times about science and faith...
Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables By CORNELIA DEAN
it is essentially a review of 7 recently released books, most of which are written by scientists defending/justifying their religious beliefs while affirming the value of science. those of you who know me will be aware of my fascination with string theory and the way i believe this particular scientific avenue opens up all kinds of exciting theological possibilities. it seems to me that much of the "GOD Vs SCIENCE", battle of the titans, cosmic showdown rhetoric is tiresome and i'm more interested in the areas eluded to in the following quote (from the article above)...

"...it is crucial in our society for people of faith, the vast majority of our population, to understand the issues of contemporary science. “I’d love to discuss the moral issues of biotechnology within a community of faith,” she writes. “But most church congregations and their leaders are not prepared for those discussions.”"

I think that if we aspire to being a self-theologizing community we will need to continue to seriously engage questions raised by biotech, quantum physics, and other emerging sciences. as much as i would love our community to have resident writers, musicians, poets, theologians, and historians (and we do have these), i would also like us to have a resident physicist, biologist, chemist, and geologist. any volunteers?

joining in...

my dad wrote this for a newsletter in Melbourne, Australia (where he lives). He spends most of his life visiting with prisoners as an employee of Prison Fellowship. i found it encouraging and so i thought i would post it here. (dad is participating in a workshop at the Surrender Conference in Melbourne next month so if you are in that part of the world and want to hear more about mission in the context of prison you can hear more there. looks like a great gathering.)

Being Part of what the Lord is Doing.
I received a letter this last week from an older Christian prisoner who has been in prison a long time and who will probably die as a prisoner. In his letter there was one quote that has been going around in my head. It was, “It is not about God fitting into my life, it about me becoming part of what the Lord is doing.”

It reminded me of Jesus’ words where he said that if we were to be his followers and disciples, then we need to deny ourselves. As a young Christian there were times that I tried to use God to answer my prayers for my own selfish desires, even good desires. I was much more likely to pray for parking places rather than peace in places of war around the world. As I got older and had more experience of life, learning of the Good Lord’s grace in my life that I started to understand the bigger picture.

I started to comprehend that the world didn’t revolve around me but that Jesus Christ was King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the creator and sustainer of the universe. That my significance as a human being was bound up in my relationship with this wonderful, holy, redeeming and reconciling God. I started to grow in my understanding of the forgiveness that I have received, the peace that He gives and the hope that is implanted in my life.

One of the main principles that I practice while visiting in the prisons is to try to identify what the Lord is already doing in people’s lives. (Theologians call it “previenent grace”, grace “that goes before”) A person may not be a Christian, may not be informed or interested in spiritual things, but the Holy Spirit may already be at work in their life. I pray that I will be guided to identify and encourage the work of the Holy Spirit in each persons life, to find something good and encourage it, next time I see them ask them, about it and show genuine interest in their life journey. So our friendship will be based on what is good in their life and I trust that my encouragement will build hope and direction so that life for that prisoner will be different in the future as that which is good will become more dominant in their life.

As we visit the prisons and serve amongst ex prisoners and their families, may we be encouraged, may we plant seeds of hope, may we provoke questions from those who we get to know, about our faith, hope and love and may we find the evidence that the Holy Spirit is already at work in people’s lives and may we reflect accurately something of God’s grace and love as we care for people in Jesus’ name.
Kevin Maddock

Wavering

I discovered this in Saturday's Lexington Herald Leader ...

BOSTON

1ST GAY MARRIAGE SPLITS

The couple who lent their name to the lawsuit that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts have separated, a family spokesman confirmed yesterday. Julie Goodridge, 49, and Hilary Goodridge, 50, were married on May 17, 2004, the first day that same-sex couples were permitted to wed in Massachusetts under the terms of Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health. The Goodridges, who selected a common surname after perusing their families' histories, declined to comment yesterday on the split. The couple have a 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

As someone who has often advocated for gay marriage, this really saddens me. I guess I believe that there is something inherently good about a commitment of love between two people. Not our popular view of love, any sort of emotion or physical attraction, but really committing to living in such a way that the other is put first and committing to that even when it is difficult. I believe that is the kind of relationship God works through whether it is a family, marriage, friendship, or community. I think that is one of the main reasons I support gay marriage. I believe that God can redeem same sex relationships through such a committment between two people. I have often disagreed with friends and family, even my own husband at times, for such a view, as many have seen on this blog. If someone wants to commit to such a relationship, it is difficult. I don't believe a relationship of love will succeed without the support of others, and I am willing and eager to offer that support.

With this said, I am all the more troubled by such news. Because I have felt so strongly about this, for those who disagree, I'm sure in some ways I've been more difficult to love, and I have had a harder time loving in return. This makes me wonder if it is worth it. If I take a risk to stand up for someone to have the right to be married, I would like them to stand up for their own marriage. In a way it makes me angry. Clinton said to me "it's just one couple". It's not just one couple. It is the first couple. Imagine the effort they put into gaining the privilege of being married legally. I imagine the whole process was draining and hard on their relationship. They were able to stick it out when the battle was against forces on the outside. I wonder if it isn't more of a struggle to battle the way we hurt ourselves and those closest to us. I guess I want to say if you are not going to handle marriage any better than that, you shouldn't have it. (Maybe the same should be said to heterosexual couples.) But, at the same time, my heart aches for them. Any relational split is heartbreaking. No matter what part a person plays in causing it or how much else a person could have done to prevent it, at the end of the day broken relationships hurt.

Separate and Unequal

This morning I was checking out online clips of The Colbert Report (what you do when you don't have cable!) and saw an interview with Tom Brokaw. Tom was talking about his new documentary called Separate and Unequal. He has gone to Jackson, Mississippi to see how things have changed for African Americans four decades after the Civil Rights Movement. I grew up about 5 miles from Jackson in Clinton and this is all too familiar. I'm guessing that the conclusion of the documentary will be that not much has changed.
The documentary airs on Sunday, July 23 at 7:00 pm Eastern on NBC.

Some thoughts on our church family

Our community may not always look diverse from the outside, but we are full of different opinions, preferences, personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. It is difficult to hold all those things together, and I am as guilty of any as wanting everyone to agree with me. I've recently been challenged by reading Desmond Tutu's writings from The Rainbow People of God, which I picked up while in South Africa. Many have been posting quotes lately, and I thought this was something I would like to share, if for no other reason than to ask to be reminded of it regularly...



Our Lord came into a deeply divided and polarized society...The world saw a veritable miracle unfolding before its very eyes as all sorts and conditions of women and men, rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile--all these came to belong in one fellowship, one koinonia, one communion. They did not regard one another just as equals. That in itself would have been a huge miracle, for a slave to be accepted as an equal by his former master. An equal you can acknowledge once and then for ever thereafter ignore. No, they regarded one another not just as equals but as sisters and brothers, members of one family, God's family. Extraordinarily a once apprehensive Ananias can actually call a former persecutor of Christians 'Brother Saul...' You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. Perhaps if we could, we might have chosen different brothers and sisters. Fortunately or unfortunately we can't. We have them as they have us. And no matter how your brother may be, you can't renounce him. He may be a murderer or worse, but he remains for ever your brother. Our baptism has made us brothers and sisters. Can you imagine what would happen in this land if we accepted that theological fact about ourselves-- that whether we like it or not we are members of one family?

The wonderful thing about family is that you are not expected to agree about everything under the sun. Show me a man and wife who have never disagreed and I will show you some accomplished fibbers. But those disagreements, pray God, do not usually destroy the unity of the family. And so it should be with God's family, the Church. We are not expected at all times to be unanimous nor to have a consensus on every conceivable subject. As long as we are at one on the fundamentals and refuse to let go of one another... Healthy differences of opinion can help the body to be more lively. After all it is unity we are talking about, not uniformity. What is needed is to respect one another's points of view and not to impute* unworthy motives to one another nor to seek to impugn** the integrity of the other. Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and to cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other. As the Church we are set as a sign in the world, the first fruits of the Kingdom, to demonstrate what God intends for human society to be, united in a rich diversity, to demonstrate that Christ has indeed broken down the middle wall of partition...

(I liked Ryan's way of doing this)
*impute- to assign as a characteristic
**impugn- to attack as false or questionable

the BRINK of war?

jon stewart says it best....

"is it still the brink?" and "feeling it at the pump"

God help us.

watch this.

One More Merton Quote

"At times the psychological conscience quickly gets paralyzed under the stress of futile introspection. But there is another spiritual activity that develops and liberates its hidden powers of action: the perception of beauty. I do not mean by this that we must expect consciousness to respond to beauty as an effete* and esoteric* thing. We ought to be alive enough to reality to see beauty all around us. Beauty is simply reality itself, perceived in a special way that gives it a resplendent value of its own. Everything that is, is beautifyl insofar as it is real--though the association which they may have acquired for men may not always make things beautiful to us. Snakes are beautiful, but not to us." Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island, p. 52.

*effette-worn out; exhausted
*esoteric- taught to a select few; private; select
(Forgive me: I had to look these up for myself!)

ghetto tax

This article from yesterday's NY Times is worth reading if you're interested in issues relating to urban poverty.
here's the link and here's the full article...

July 19, 2006
Study Documents ‘Ghetto Tax’ Being Paid by the Urban Poor
By ERIK ECKHOLM
WASHINGTON, July 18 — Drivers from low-income neighborhoods of New York, Hartford and Baltimore, insuring identical cars and with the same driving records as those from middle-class neighborhoods, paid $400 more on average for a year’s insurance.
The poor are also the main customers for appliances and furniture at “rent to own” stores, where payments are stretched out at very high interest rates; in Wisconsin, a $200 television can end up costing $700.
Those were just two examples among several cited in a report Tuesday showing that poor urban residents frequently pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year in extra costs for everyday necessities. The study said some of the disparities were due to real differences in the cost of doing business in poor areas, some to predatory financial practices and some to consumer ignorance.
The study, from the Brookings Institution, said finding ways to eliminate these added costs, often called a “ghetto tax,” could be an important new front in the fight against poverty.
At a meeting connected with the report’s release, officials from three states — New York, Pennsylvania and Washington — said they were already doing just that through a variety of programs to draw banks to poor neighborhoods, help finance the construction of supermarkets and encourage innovative insurance schemes.
“There’s a large and for the most part overlooked opportunity here to help low-income families get ahead,” Matt Fellowes, the Brookings researcher who wrote the report, said in an interview. “That is to reduce their costs.”
Measures that reduced the price of essential goods and services for low-income Americans by just 1 percent would put an additional $6.5 billion a year in their hands, said the report, titled “From Poverty, Opportunity.”
Sheldon H. Danziger, a poverty expert at the University of Michigan, noted that $6.5 billion was roughly one-third the benefit the same families have gained through the earned-income tax credit. “Certainly these measures could be an important source of income,” Professor Danziger said of the report’s findings. “But I don’t see them as competing with things like raising the minimum wage, raising child subsidies and providing health insurance.”
Citing other examples of the ghetto tax, the report found that nationally, 4.5 million low-income customers, defined as families making less than $30,000 a year, paid an average of two percentage points more for car loans than did middle-class buyers. And the common use of storefront check-cashing services by poor people, it said, comes at a steep price that varies with local regulations; in 12 cities studied, the fee for cashing a $500 check ranged from $5 to $50.
Part of the problem, the study found, is a discrepancy between the poor and the middle class in consumer skills and mobility: people who comparison-shop, especially on the Internet, tend to pay hundreds less for the identical car than those who walk onto a city lot and buy.
But the disparities can be reduced, the report said, not only by consumer education but also by some combination of incentives to lure banks and stores into poor neighborhoods and tighter regulation on things like the fees of storefront lenders.
The New York State Banking Department has drawn major banks into underserved neighborhoods by placing deposits of government money, sometimes at below-market interest, in the new branches. These may enable more residents to open accounts and reduce reliance on costly check-cashers and lenders, said the state’s superintendent of banks, Diana L. Taylor.
In Pennsylvania, a program led by a Democratic state legislator, Dwight Evans, used state and private financing for construction of supermarkets in areas where residents had previously had to rely on costly small stores or drive long distances for groceries.
Washington State’s insurance commissioner, Mike Kreidler, described efforts to restrict the use of personal credit scores by sellers of home and car insurance.
In a practice that has recently come into wide use in the industry, insurers study credit history to help judge the likelihood that a customer will file insurance claims; those with worse credit records are charged higher premiums, because, insurers say, the industry has found a correlation between poor ratings and the filing of claims.
But Mr. Kreidler and some consumer groups say that the insurers’ approach is not transparent and consistent and that their method is likely to increase prices unfairly for poor people and minorities.
The insurance industry, on the other hand, argues that the new approach benefits many low-income consumers. “We think the use of credit scoring has allowed us to better serve urban areas,” David F. Snyder, vice president of the American Insurance Association, said in an interview. Mr. Snyder said that with this more individualized tool, companies were less likely to raise rates for entire neighborhoods or categories.

random bits: food, war, the suburbs, and anthropology

Jodie has another great post on good eatin' here.

Thunder posts a surprising piece of reflection from Pat Buchanan about the Israel/Lebanon conflict here.

Simon Holt has a series of posts about suburban life and the gospel ("suburban dreams") here.

and this quote from ruth benedict (i spotted this on a friend's t-shirt the other day as we prepared an apartment for refugees):

"The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences."

local veg as sacrament

 
i took this pic at the downtown farmers market on saturday. the morning light was just low enough to surge under the stall's canopy and set the carrots ablaze...like a sacrifice on an altar. a walk through the market is a weekly family ritual that affirms our identity as created beings dependant on kentucky soil, water, and air for our survival. isaac enjoys pointing out that 'god made carrots and people and peaches and corn and toys and chocolate and cake and...." we enjoy marveling with passers at what god and humans can create together. i am glad to admit that the farmers market is nothing short of a holy sacrament for our family and a nourishment that goes beyond the food that is for sale. 

why organic food?

follow this link to read a post from jodie about organic food...a very helpful summary for confused omnivores.

Psalm 16

I do not like to write. I do not like it at all. It has taken me the past two weeks to write a couple of papers that should have taken me an afternoon at most. I stress because I never think I can come up with the right words. So, last night, as I prepared for our prayer group this morning, I had a big surprise. I read Psalm 16 earlier in the week, and thought it might be a good psalm to use. Last night, I read it and felt the urge to write. I wanted to drop everything and try to paraphrase it to convey the way I think it speaks of our life in community. So, I painfully forced my husband to "help me"... I say painful because he was forced to listen to my ideas while trying hard not to "take over" because he wanted it to be my work, all the while absorbing my anxious crankiness.

This morning I almost didn't tell anyone I had written it. I stress over people reading my writing as well. So, to discipline myself, I'm going to post it here on our blog. I guess because I truly believe it was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If there is anything good in it, that is the source. At times if it is awkward or doesn't make sense, it is because it is channeled through a reluctant, insecure messenger.


Psalm 16
We trust in you, Oh God,
for you protect us from ourselves.
We say to you Lord, “Take control of our lives.”
for on our own, nothing makes sense.

We cherish and delight in the faithful friends
you have given us in community.

Many in our world choose things other than God,
and we see the pain it causes.
We do not seek our joy through these things-
autonomy, wealth, popularity, and power.

As your people, you give us our daily bread:
nourishment through table fellowship,
homes to share, gardens to grow,
children through which we see the future

We praise the Lord who guides us.

He brought us together to be a reflection of Him and His work in the world
He is faithful to complete that work.
Let's not take ourselves so seriously,
we do not need to lose sleep at night.

So, let's relax, rejoice, and give thanks for one another.
We have found a place where we can belong.
We will not be abandoned.
Our greatest fears will not be confirmed.

God, You have placed us on this journey together.
Let us continue on with joy toward life abundant.
We celebrate all the blessings which you give.

More Longing for Home

I keep participating in meetings and getherings where I am warned against pulling lines and bits of the Bible out of their context. At the same time, I keep not reading the entire Bible at one sitting. Sorry.
Today I had the chance to read this little part of the Bible: "And she went out and said to her mother, 'What shall I ask for?' And her mother answered, 'The head of John the Baptist,'" (Mark 6:24). In the story it occurs as background information; it is easy to miss the family trauma here. A girl (we don't know her age) dances for her uncle/stepfather on his birthday. Her mother is so desperate to leave the past in the past that she plots to silence the voice of a man who speaks out against her new marriage. The girl, still doing her part to stabilize the new family situation, dutifully passes on her mother's request as her own.
Mark's story is about Jesus. This bit is about John. Unless I pull one little verse out of the story of Jesus and John I will miss the story of a little girl who would do anything to make her family make sense. Her's is a story that reemerges throughout history, but is not often reported. As I picture her carrying a platter to her mother, I grieve and groan for all the death and pain and abuse that goes on because little girls want their famlies to work. I suppose this regrettable part of the story continues until home breaks in.

wings, prayers, et al

i wanted to encourage people to be praying for several people traveling from our community right now:

Melissa Maher is making her way to Mutare, Zimbabwe to serve and love the people of that brutalised country.
Joey Koskie is winging his way to the United Kingdom to present a paper at a theology conference...
Maria Kenney is also on her way to the UK to further her PhD studies...
Billy Kenney is headed our to Los Angeles to check up on some One Horizon matters (www.onehorizon.org)...
The Schroeder family is packing up this week to move to Austin, TX. Mark was offered a remarkable job opportunity but we will miss them greatly (Judy is one of the original originals of Communality)...please pop by for a last farewell at Pazzo's tomorrow (Tues.) evening between 5.30-7.30pm...

am i missing anyone/anything?

...and this from E. Stanley Jones:
"Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us - an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation. "

"Prayer means that the total you is praying. Your whole being reaches out to God, and God reaches down to you."

"Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God."

last night

this was the scene last night at the 3rd St fellowship gathering. a great meal prepared by the Grahams. Tommy led us in the grace which was the Lord's prayer - a holy moment for me. then we acknowledged that the meal was in fact communion and we reflected on the bread of life (John 6). this was one of my favorite times of "the church gathered" in the 8 years we have been doing it. thanks be to God and you all who show me the ways and face of Jesus. 

a blast from the past

 

joy!

 

Something to ponder

Credit to the staff of MSN Money for this excerpt from an article that I read today:

By MSN Money staff
Last year was a very good year to be an average CEO.

A typical chief executive at a U.S. company earned 262 times the pay of a typical worker in 2005, according to a recent report.

With 260 workdays in a year, that means that an average CEO earned more in one workday than a worker earned in 52 weeks.

That pay gap is the second-highest in the 40 years for which data are available, reports the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

American CEOs fared even better in 2000, when they made an average of 300 times the salary of their workers.

Executive pay has become a hot-button issue with shareholders around the country.

So I guess my question is this: How does this kind of unbelievable disparity in pay accord with Matthew 20:1-16-the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard? Perhaps this is a leading question; and if it is I would like to suggest one other leading question that it may raise, viz. who exactly is the one leading us when the people in our society who are at the "front of the line" make as much in one day as the people at the "back of the line" make in a whole year?

One Horizon website launched!

We are excited about the launch of our new web site about One Horizon.
Not all the links are in place yet but it's a good start.

if your interested, go here and read up on this new project.
http://www.onehorizon.org/

this from the welcome page...

One Horizon is an international foundation supporting local initiatives. Our guiding image—our “one horizon”—is a world that works for everyone. To that end we mobilize resources and organize initiatives to reduce suffering, establish equality, build community, sustain development, and confront prejudices that stand in the way of these.
We work cooperatively through Communality, our faith community network, and we extend this cooperation to other civil society organizations through our Convergence network. Our work is supported by our own volunteer-based social program, Catalyst, and by grant-making with other qualified organizations. Research support is provided by the One Horizon Centre on Globalization. Financial resources are mobilized through the One Horizon Endowment