Iraq

Dona nobis pacem

Paper cranes in vitroI have very faint memories of the Roman Catholic mass being said in Latin from when I was very young. I remember mouthing what I thought were actual words, although they meant nothing to me, and thinking that I was an active participant in the mass like my sisters and brothers and parents, next to me in the pew. When I investigate now when the change from Latin to English happened, it began in 1964, right before I turned six. Mostly I just remember mass in English.

So my Latin was non-existent through most of my life, if I had ever even known any!

At Girl Scout camp in 1970, I learned this beautiful song sung as a round. It went like this:

Dona…nobis…pacem, pacem. Dona…nobis…pacem.

I didn’t know it was Latin; I only knew when four groups of girls’ voices sang it in offsetting phrases to make the round, it sounded like angels.

Years later when Jana and I attended one of our annual Lobby Day gatherings with Bread for the World, a wonderful singer named Beth Nielsen Chapman sang the blessing at a large banquet. Fascinated with the song she sang, There’s a Light, when I returned home I bought her CD called simply Hymns. There were great songs from my RC childhood that we sang in church. And there was this:

Dona…nobis…pacem, pacem.

She laid down all the tracks, so the round was recreated with her beautiful voice filling out the angel chorus. As it went straight to my heart and triggered that memory of camp and singing and angel choirs, it made me want to know more.

So all those years later, I finally looked up what those Latin words mean.

Dona nobis pacem…grant us peace.

Grant us peace.

Paper cranesAnd that has been my prayer ever since in the midst of family upheavals and tragedies, in the midst of transitions at church, and of course, in my journeys into the deep waters of a relationship with God in the Middle East.

Dona nobis pacem. Grant us peace.

And as I have delved into this old Latin phrase from my childhood, I have reconnected it to the beginning of that part of the mass:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Not only does this prayer in an ancient language remind me of the generations of people who prayed it in community before I was conceived and born, but it reminds me to whom I am asking this request. It is a prayer to the Jesus who knows suffering because he experienced it. Because of his great mercy, he redeems us and wipes our slates clean. And we know this, and I know this. And so we come to his feet and ask him: have mercy on us. Grant us peace.

And he can. And he will. And he does.

And I know this because I have seen it in Lebanon and in Syria and in Iraq. I have witnessed those living this suffering even now as they are put upon by forces and evil that would wipe them out.

And they stay. And they pray in ancient languages: in Syriac, in Latin, in Arabic.

Grant us peace.

Dona nobis pacem.

Their prayers take flight and arise heavenward to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And mine join with theirs in this upward trajectory.

Prayers, like birds on the wing, flying to the throne room of the Lamb of God.

Paper cranes Shaheen TomehAnd because the Clifton Strength Finders tells me that one of my top five strengths is connectivity, I have connected my journeys with the faithful of the Middle East to my prayers of peace for them to this visible expression of those prayers in origami cranes.

The legend of the one thousand paper cranes comes from Japan, and is especially poignant when you read of a young girl who was poisoned with radiation from the bombing of Hiroshima. Folding one thousand paper cranes is supposed to bring you luck or a wish granted. She was hoping for healing of her cancer, which didn’t come to her. She was not healed, but maybe one day her wish will be granted in another way: maybe nuclear weapons will be eliminated so the threat of cancers and destruction caused by them will be wiped out. Maybe. Maybe there will be peace.

Paper cranes prayers ascendingI have folded 96 so far on my journey to one thousand. On each one is written the name of a person, or a place, or a piece of scripture, or the words of a hymn, or simply the word peace in any language I can find. As I fold each one my simple prayer of peace is attached to each one in the motions of making the crane.

The prayers are repeated and joined as I string them on nylon thread, separated by beads. It reminds me of the act of praying the rosary.

The prayers are repeated again as I hang the strings of cranes in my office near my map of the world – God’s creation – where this peace is so needed.

Every day as I enter my office, I have this visual reminder and expression of those silent prayers. And it gets larger every day with another crane, ten more cranes; another string; five more strings. And one day it will reach one thousand.

My wish – my prayer! – in folding these cranes is simply this:

Dona nobis pacem…grant us peace.

Grant peace to the people of Syria, whose war has dragged on for over four years.

Dona nobis pacem.

Paper cranes Micah 6 8Grant peace to the people of Iraq, whose troubles and war run on unabated since our country’s terrible decision to invade in 2003.

Dona nobis pacem.

Grant peace to the people of Lebanon, a country that becomes a proxy and pawn for the evil ideas of others; a small country that has borne a heavy burden from these other two wars as they are overrun with refugees.

Dona nobis pacem.

Grant peace to the pastors and churches and their congregations who stay and serve and minister in the midst of extremist attacks and destruction and death.

Dona nobis pacem.

Grant peace to those who have lost everything and are searching for new homes.

Dona nobis pacem.

Grant peace to your world, Lamb of God. Let us know your peace which surpasses all understanding.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem.

Amen.

 

The Politics of Hope

crabapple tree in bloomIt’s started.

Our great American political circus, I mean the presidential campaign season, has started for 2016. Cruz is in! Rubio is in! Hillary is in! (In case you don’t know me, that last one makes me happy. 🙂 )

“I still believe in a place called ‘Hope,'” said the last president named Clinton.

I still believe in that place as well, although I don’t find it in the political circus or any of the performers in that ring, even Hillary.

But I don’t blame politics for that. I just blame what we have let the meaning of that word become.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary the fifth listed definition of politics is this:

the total complex of relations between people living in society

Total. Complex. Relations. Between people. Living. In society.

It’s what has been modeled for me in the body of Christ – the church – a place that has struggled with politics since its birthday two thousand years ago, and yet still walks on, humbly and imperfectly. With hope.

Its totality: global, existing in its varied parts across the whole planet. I have walked with my brothers and sisters – the eyes and ears and limbs I cannot get along without – in Cameroon, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria. It’s a big family!

It’s complex: orthodox, catholic, reformed, apostolic, evangelical, monotheistic but based on a trinitarian dance of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It’s relational: in worship, in creeds, in sacrament – sharing life together with the one who gives us life.

Between people: and among people! Caring for each other in crisis. Praying at the bedside of the dying. Feeding the hungry. Standing with the oppressed and imprisoned. Seeing the value of our human lives as our created made us. High and low, young and old, male and female. Between. Among. Connected.

It’s living: ISIS can’t destroy it (although it is trying); purveyors of the prosperity gospel can’t dilute it and sell it like indulgences (although they try). Its message of the real good news – death is defeated! – puts air in our lungs.

In society: I have seen it care for the least of these in a home for the handicapped in Ludwigsburg, Germany. I have it walked with it among Syrian refugees in camps in Lebanon. I have heard it shouted from displaced Iraqis now in Kurdistan: we may have lost everything, but we still have Jesus! It will not be silenced. It is in the public square and ministering there.

And that is where I find hope in politics. Not in the mud-slinging that is to come as we sort out who our leaders should be, but there in that buried fifth definition from Merriam-Webster.

I find hope in that crabapple tree on our back patio. It’s roots are bound by concrete on all but one side, and yet every year it pushes out those gorgeous pink blossoms which will fall like snow in a week. The blossoms will wither and descend. The tree will hibernate in the fall. And then…BAM! Here they are again.

John 1:14 says the word was made flesh and pitched its tent with us. The complex totality of the word of God moved into the neighborhood, into our society, to live with us.

And hope is here still.

 

 

 

 

Sounding Stones

sounding stones panoramaI took a walk on a beautiful day in Omaha this past Sunday. On days like that, I just set out and let my feet go where they will, and on this day, they took me south toward Elmwood Park and the Sounding Stones.

This five-piece concrete sculpture was moved to this corner of the park along Dodge Street several years ago from another park about two miles east. A new development in midtown called for changes to Turner Park and so the sculpture was carefully packed up and moved west. There was quite a bit of resistance to this move by folks in my neighborhood. “That’s art? It’s ugly!” The NIMBY crowed was vocal, but city officials were unmoved and the Sounding Stones arrived.

Personally, I like them. I drive by them daily on my way home, and now several years later, they are a part of the landscape.

So Sunday, my feet took me along the path where they sit and for the very first time I saw them up close.

sounding stone brokenness sounding stone submission

sounding stone humility     sounding stone simplicity

sounding stone communityThese are the sounding stones. Five values or attributes, five nouns that describe my life of faith. And amazingly, when I went home to search out the story of this sculpture, this is what I found in artist Leslie Iwai’s own words:

“The location of these stones in Omaha – a city in the middle of our nation – is important. Soundings are taken in the middle of a body of water to measure its depth. Likewise, in taking the ‘soundings’ of our community, we measure its depth. The open core of each stone is to be a place for crying out. God purposes for all people to break complacency and praise Him. But even, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’ (Luke 19:40),” Iwai wrote in her artist statement about the work. (Wayne State College Magazine, Summer, 2006 issue)

I don’t know what the depth of faith is in the middle of my city of Omaha, but on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the middle of Omaha, I lay down in the hollow of that first stone labeled “brokenness” and knew that the depth of my faith starts there, in the brokenness of my life. Loss of my mother at age 7. The child abuse of my siblings by an evil stepmother. My sisters’ near life-ending car/train collision. My brother’s HIV diagnosis. The death of my father from renal failure. The rape and murder of my baby sister.

All those broken parts of my heart have brought me closer to the one who can heal.

And I wondered where the stone of brokenness would take me on that path and so I left that hollow in the middle of brokenness and walked on. I found myself looking upon humility and submission; I found myself at the foot of the cross where I kneel in obedience to a Lord whose blood was poured out for me and for all of us. Humbly. Gratefully.

And then I wandered on to simplicity, because it is so simple. He takes it all away: the loss, the pain, the horror, the fear, leaving just me, the Julie he created me to be. He is all I need and all I want.

And just when I think there is no more, he leads me down the path to community. He has shown me his body – the global church – and connected me into something so much bigger than I could ever imagine.

A depth sounding in the middle of Omaha, landlocked in the middle of the USA, on the staple of the map.

But even as I lingered at community, I thought how each of those stones has become more real to me as I have traveled far from the staple of this map to the places where human sounding stones have fleshed out the depth of faith for me in the past five years.

I thought of the brokenness of Syria and Iraq. I saw the humility of people who have lost everything and yet serve their neighbors who have lost even more. I saw the simplicity of life lived without stuff, yet lived in joy because of their love for a God who holds them and comforts them in their losses. I have seen the obedient submission of those who stay where they have have been planted and grown deep roots, to continue to share the good news in a place that needs to hear it more than ever. I have seen the community of orthodox and catholic and protestant come together as one family and love their Muslim and Yazidi neighbors who are also broken.

My friend Marilyn is currently in Iraq sending back stories of this faithful community of God’s living stones, and two lines in her recent emails struck me as I ponder these five sounding stones standing in my park nine time zones to her west:

  • “Do not cry for us—we have may have lost everything, but we still have Jesus.” – A woman driven from Mosul by ISIS, now living in a tiny space in a former Sunday school room of a church in the safer northeast
  • “how strange that we (Muslims) try to kill you (Christians) and you help us anyway.” -shared by an elder of the church in Kirkuk

As Marilyn added, “What a powerful testimony to the of sharing Christ’s love and of God bringing good out of evil!”

They are the living stones who cry out in thanksgiving and praise for the one who made them and saved them and loves them still.

And from the depth of my heart and soul, I cry out in thanksgiving and praise to him along with them.

And pray for his peace to descend on us all.

 

Memory loss

Mark Mueller, Elmarie Parker, Rob Weingartner, Elder Zuhair, Marshall Zieman, Tom Boone and Larry Richards offer communion at the Evangelical Church of Basrah, November, 2012.

Mark Mueller, Elmarie Parker, Rob Weingartner, Elder Zuhair, Marshall Zieman, Tom Boone and Larry Richards offer communion at the Evangelical Church of Basrah, November, 2012.

Today was communion Sunday at our church and the familiar words were spoken as we began the celebration of the Lord’s supper:

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

It’s a ritual I first took part in when I received my first communion in second grade at Christ the King Catholic Church here in Omaha, fifty years ago. I wrote about it in my blog last October:

Remembering

And every time I receive the elements, the bread and the cup, I remember back to that night.

I remember the communion in Basrah, Iraq, that I witnessed in 2011 as the Presbyterian church there was able to celebrate it because our group brought four pastors with us.

I remember that communion repeated in Basrah in 2012 as we returned with six pastors.

And I remember communion in that same church in March, 2014, as we returned to celebrate communion with them as they now had their own pastor to lead it.

Memories. I collect them like others collect stamps or baseball cards. It’s what makes me Julie, or at least contributes to the essence of me.

Remembering in communion, remembering the sacrifice made for us out of great love, is the center of our Christian worship, its holy essence in the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Jana and I just came back from seeing the movie, “Still Alice.” It stars Julianne Moore in the role of a brilliant linguist and college professor, wife and mother of three, who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Bit by bit, she loses the words she is a master of. She gets lost on the campus in her familiar daily run. She forgets where the bathroom is in her home. She forgets the names of those most familiar to her.

And even though her family grieves her loss as she disappears day by day, they love her and care for her and know that she is, after all, still Alice. But in the end, she really is not the Alice that we saw in the beginning. She has been robbed of her essence.

I have seen it happen to others I know as well, real people, not characters in a movie. It is very hard to watch and a feeling of helplessness in the situation is overwhelming.

This movie struck a bitter, minor chord in my heart today because of the recent news of what is happening in Iraq and Syria: the destruction of ancient works of art and ancient manuscripts in Mosul and other places as ISIS deems them idols of the apostate. “These things didn’t exist at the time of the Prophet. They have been invented and must be destroyed,” or something like that.

It’s a bitter chord because it is like a deliberate attack on the essence of who we are as humans and how we developed the languages to tell our story, the grand story of our creation by a loving God. The same creativity he exhibited by speaking us into being and breathing his very breath into us to give us life, has been left behind by those who wrote it down on parchment manuscripts, who sculpted it into winged creatures of bigger-than-life size, who painted it onto canvas or stone walls.

And it is systematically being destroyed, erased, even as the words that Alice knew intimately were wiped one by one from her brain.

I am reading a book right now called High Tea in Mosul by Lynne O’Donnell. She was one of the first journalists to reach this ancient city after the war ended (it never really did, did it?) after the invasion in 2003. I haven’t finished it yet, but in reading it this week I came to a part that just made me want to cry out.

Mosul is the ancient Ninevah of the Bible. The Ninevah that God sent the reluctant prophet Jonah to in order to preach his word of repentance. There is – I mean was – a temple there where Jonah was said to be buried. Lynne talks about it standing there still as testament to the power of the human spirit to hang on even in the hardest and darkest of times.

The book was written in 2007. In 2014, this temple of Jonah was destroyed.

As Alice’s family learns early on after her diagnosis, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s.

I don’t know the cure for the scourge of evil that is ISIS. And bit by bit, this disease is robbing our human family of its collective memories, the ancient artifacts that tell our story.

And so I cry out with my brothers and sisters who live there and who watch it happen and are helpless to do anything,

How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Habakkuk 1:2

And then I remember the bread and the cup of sacrifice. And I say thank you for the gift of memory. And I write it down and look at the pictures I have taken of men and women and children.

And I pray.

 

Prayer of solidarity in a string of beads

Bowl of glass stones

Sisters and brothers in Christ, today we gather around the baptismal font, remembering both God’s gracious promises to us and our sisters and brothers in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (and Egypt). We are united by a common faith in Jesus Christ and a family bond that reaches from east to west, and north to south around this globe; one that covers all time.

This was the start of a prayer of solidarity for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. Mission co-workers with our denomination, the PCUSA – and friends of mine – came to our pulpit to share stories of their first year living in Beirut and working with the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. Powerful stories. I have shared a few on this blog myself, that I have experienced personally. I recognized the places, the faces and the loss and grief as Scott and Elmarie spoke.

And since we are God’s children, we are God’s heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share Christ’s glory, we must also share his suffering.

On this day we shared by praying together in solidarity with them. And to remind ourselves to keep praying, we each came forward to the baptismal font and took a polished stone to hold in our hands.

Glass stoneMine is green glass. Polished. Smooth. Easy to hold and to admire. And when it is cupped in my hands, clasped in a gesture of prayer, it is a tactile reminder of those who are heirs to God’s glory and even now sharing in his suffering.

As I look at that picture of the collection of glass stones, I can easily assign names to them; each representing a real person, people I know and love.

There’s Lamis from Lattakia who gave me lovely earrings in 2010 in a quieter time and place.

There is Toeh, a young woman from Homs, now a refugee with her family in Amr Hasn, who doesn’t even have any photos to remind her of life before the war.

There is Huda in Yazdieh, the pastor’s wife who collects food and blankets and distributes with love and prayer to some 1700 families, like Toeh’s.

There are the eight pastors still serving fifteen Presbyterian congregations in Syria: Salam, Ibrahim, Yacoub, Ma’an, Michel, Boutrous, Firas and Mofid.

There are the synod leaders: Fadi and Josef and Adeeb and George, along with Assis Salim, the head of the organization of evangelical churches.

There are the pastors in Lebanon as well, serving their own congregations plus those who have fled there: Mikhael and Rola and Fouad and Hadi.

Educators bringing the word of God and the values of Christ to new generations: Najla and Dr. Mary and Nellie and Hala and Izdihar and Riad.

Pastors and elders and priests who are doing the same work of provision and reconciliation in Iraq: Haitham and Farook and Magdy, Patriarch Louis Sako, Fr. Aram and Fr. Turkum and Msgr. Emad and Zuhair and all the teachers in the kindergartens.

One polished stone for each of them, and I hold this green one in my hands and pray.

Saving God, hear this day the cries of those in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon (and Egypt) who have been over-run by violence. For those who are able to flee, guide them to safe havens. For those who stay, whether by choice or lack of means to leave, grant them courage, perseverance, hope and what they need to survive. May your church embody and freely share these gifts with those around them.

RosaryI always carry a rosary with me, a habit from my Roman Catholic upbringing. It’s a tool for prayer: 59 beads strung together with a crucifix on the end. My Aunt Carolyn, a Franciscan nun, gave this one to me on a trip earlier this year. She received it on a trip to Rome in 1998 and it has been blessed by Pope John Paul II. It’s a lovely remembrance of her trip, her vocation, and my connection to her and to the faith I was raised in.

Adeeb's prayer beadsI also have a set of beautiful amberwood prayer beads that I purchased in Lebanon this past November from a street vendor named Mohammed. Many of the pastors I know in the Middle East carry these same 33-bead strands with them everywhere, constantly moving the beads through their fingers, not out of habit, but in prayer. It was one of the first things I noticed about Assis Adeeb when I met him in 2010.

And this green polished glass stone that is now in front of me while I work, is a visual and tactile connector for me to these strings of beads used in prayer by people like me who follow Jesus. It may be a solitary stone, but it binds me in solidarity with each of those other stones as we pray together.

So let us pray.

God of peace, empower and guide those who are working to make visible your kingdom ways of justice, peace, and transforming love in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (and Egypt). Bring your transforming peace to these lands. For Christian schools and teachers working with both Muslim and Christian students we pray – grant them wisdom, creativity, and enduring love. For Muslim and Christian students studying side-by-side – grant them the courage to live into a new kind of future together in the Middle East where there is respect and opportunity for all, regardless of religious creed, ethnicity, or gender. For those working with children orphaned and traumatized by war – grant them daily hope and joy-filled love. For children, women and men maimed in spirit, mind, or body by violence – grant them healing and a new future. For government officials – grant them the will to seek the good of their people and courage to turn away from personal or outside agendas that seek gain from war and instability. For those caught up in violent political and religious radicalism – wake them up to true life. Grant that we, disciples of Jesus from east and west, north and south, bound together by baptism and the Holy Spirit, may live each day with Christ’s kind of self-giving love: doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with you. Amen.

And amen.

(A special thank you to Revs. Scott and Elmarie Parker for this prayer, which is adapted from The Worship Sourcebook, pp. 286-304; Job 19:7; Habakkuk 1:2; Romans 8:17; I Thess. 5:16-18, 23-24; Micah 6-8.)

Praying for the enemy

Peace hands worldThere are many words fighting in my head right now to get out and I’m not sure my fingers can translate, but it seems they want to try, so here goes.

I used a line to describe this blog when I started it last January that goes like this: trying to love the world one person at a time. And I have tried to use the words that I put down to tell stories of people I have loved and who have loved me. People who have made love real in my life. In my own dictionary, their faces would be illustrations for what love looks like and feels like. They are people I have met in travels, in school, at church and in my family. Receiving that kind of love makes me want to return it as the gift it is.

I spent this last weekend with some of those very special people, two sisters and a brother: Susan, Sally and Mike. We made a journey to speak with the district attorney who is handling the murder case that will one day be tried in Riverside County, California, for the rape and murder of our baby sister Cathy. We have walked this journey as a family for the last twenty-two months and we will walk it every day for the rest of our lives, because it won’t end when the trial is over. Cathy has been taken from our family in the most heinous way and her loss is unbearable.

But we have walked this journey together as a family with love for Cathy and love for each other. It is the kind of love that is forged like hardened steel in a fiery forge. It’s unbreakable. Unbendable. And I know that not every family experiences that kind of love. The six of us siblings who survive Cathy have this deep, deep love. And I am grateful for that.

But the scripture that I base my faith on, the one that gives witness to Jesus, says that I am to love my enemies. As someone who avoids conflict and seeks peace, I don’t consider anyone my enemy. I know there is hatred and violence in the world, there is oppression and suppression and just downright evil manifested in this place we call home. I have prayed for the enemies of my friends in Iraq and Syria; prayed that they will see the light of what they have done, recognize the wrong in the slaughter they have committed, and repent. I have prayed that same thing when our government commits those same kinds of acts in what they say is a defense of our country.

I have prayed for reconciliation on many fronts. That is what I am called to do, compelled even, because of who commands me to.

This is the hard part for me now. I have an enemy: a man has killed my sister and I have been introduced to him in California. I met him in the photos the DA showed us. I met him in the video they made of him on the night he was arrested. I met him in his words transcribed in the report of a psychologist.

I have seen his face. I have heard his voice. His words describing what he did are things no one should ever have to hear. And this is the only way I know him and it causes conflict in my heart and my head to think of him as my enemy, but he must be. He killed my sister.

But I have also learned something about him. He is the son of a mother who went through the same nine months of carrying him in his womb that my mother and Cathy’s mother went through. She felt the same pains of labor as she delivered this beloved child. He has a mother who has surely lost a son in a way that no mother plans for.

He has two sisters and a brother who are caught in the same life sentence that me and my sisters and brothers are, for we cannot escape the consequences or the loss that we experience on this side of heaven. (There will surely be consequences for his actions. This I do believe!)

I haven’t gotten to the level of loving this man who is my enemy and only with God’s grace will I, but I have been praying for him since his path crossed paths with my family. And now I am praying for his mother and his brother and his two sisters, as surely as I pray for my own.

I have just finished reading Walter Wink’s The Powers That Be. And the thing that sticks with me is his exposition on Jesus’ command to love my enemies. Not loving them – not seeing their humanity – will eventually dehumanize me, and I will become what I hate. Becoming what I hate will only feed the powers and continue a cycle of violence. And yes, I believe hate is violence.

I am tired of hate. I am tired of violence. I am tired.

And so I pray. I pray that God will redeem this story, as surely as he will redeem everything in his time.

And I love. And I am loved. And I feel it from every side and it gets me through each day: yesterday, today and all the tomorrows to come.

And finally in this week (I am so thankful for the timing!) our church staff got to the part of the book of Revelation that I have been waiting for:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:3-5)

No more death.

No more mourning.

No more crying.

No more pain.

Everything made new.

For God so loved the world.

Amen.

 

Great is thy faithfulness

photo-greatisthyfaithfulnessI had to write the departmental narrative for my church’s 2014 annual report this week. When you work with numbers all day and try to make sure they are accurate, exercising my fingers on the keyboard in a word narrative always feels great!

Writing this blog over the past six months has also felt great, and I am grateful that people are actually reading it, even if they are just my supportive family. Thank you Aunt Carolyn, Sally, Susan, Alex and the rest!

In looking back at 2014 from my perspective as a church member and as a member of the church staff, one thought kept running through my head and it was a song. Any other time when a song gets stuck in my head I call it an earworm. It usually happens at night and keeps me up as it endlessly replays, like when the needle used to get stuck on an old 33 or 45 rpm record.

This one wasn’t like that. It was a prayer in thanksgiving to a God who has shown up over and over again in my life, whether lived in the day-to-day in Omaha, or on my travels to Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see. Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

Gosh, that’s a great hymn! I even used it once in a devotional in Basrah, Iraq.

The hymn was written by Thomas Obediah Chisholm in 1923 and the music was composed by his friend William Marion Runyon. And like many hymns, this one was inspired in the life of this dear brother in Christ by words from scripture.

http://www.lectionary.org/HymnStories/Great%20Is%20Thy%20Faithfulness.htm

As the words came back to me over and over again while I was writing my annual report, the thought that struck me was that these words come out of the book of Lamentations. It’s almost in the very center of the book, at chapter 3 and verses 22-23:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

This short book of scripture, only five chapters long, is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who proclaimed the word of the Lord to the people of Judah. There was certainly a lot to lament if you read through the entire fifty-two chapters of the book of Jeremiah! God’s people suffering due to their own lack of faithfulness to the one who brought them out of captivity. We did that book once in staff Bible study and it was one of the most depressing seasons we have ever experienced in studying the word. There was great joy when it ended!

And that is why these two little verses in a five-chapter book stand out to me. In a book called Lamentations, where the writer is grieving over such loss, he stills calls out to God with a word of acknowledgement that he has been faithful, he is faithful, and in fact, his faithfulness will be seen in the mercies of each new morning.

And that is the cry of my heart in this new year, a year of 365 new mornings, each filled with the mercies of a God who loves me.

My family is still grieving over the violent loss of our dear baby sister Cathy and seeking justice for her, and we walk those days together.

Great is thy faithfulness!

My family of faith in Syria and Iraq are experiencing the darkness of night of ongoing wars, yet still shining the light of God as they serve those in need.

Great is thy faithfulness!

Transitions in staff at church are hard, long-time friends I have served with and are now gone. The loss of George in 2012. Saying good-bye to Terri and Andy and Allison just this past year. Wondering who is to come and serve alongside me in ministry at West Hills Church.

Great is thy faithfulness!

Watching Jana’s slow decline but seeing her get out of bed every morning and step into each new day.

Great is thy faithfulness!

Verse 24 of chapter 3 of Lamentations says this: “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.'”

I say to myself: Julie you believe. Keep believing this Lord who walks with you. Wait for him, as he waits with you.

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

Thank you.

Amen.

A Christmas poem, 2011

At a West Hills Church staff Christmas party at my house, probably Christmas 2010.

At a West Hills Church staff Christmas party at my house, probably Christmas 2010.

For many years I have written an end of year poem for the pastor at my church. It started kind of innocently and not deliberately around 1997 or so. Doctor Seuss-like verse pops out of my fingers without thinking most days. That year I had become more involved here at my church and really started listening to the sermons. By listening, I mean absorbing.

So, George Moore was our pastor then, and he was the inspiration. He had spent many sermons trying to get us to understand the word incarnational. That word and the word relational were the two words that really described our church. Well, once we understood what they meant!

So that Christmas I began to understand how the two went together and how we define our life here in this community of worship and faith.

I also realized the two words made a great rhyme!

I don’t have that poem as I wrote it out longhand in his Christmas card that year, the first time I wrote him a poem, and the first time I gave him a Christmas card.

And that continued all the way through 2011, when he preached his last Advent series. He had one ready for 2012, but sadly, he died on November 24, 2012, before he could give it to us.

I wrote one for the associate pastor that year; I’m not sure she appreciated it like George did. She never said anything. I wrote one for our interim last year, and I would say the same thing. I realize neither of them is George, and no one can ever take his place.

I used to put it on his desk between the two late Christmas Eve services with a little gift.

He would always find me and say, “How do you do it? How can you write a poem about my Advent series and always include something about the sermon you haven’t heard yet? The one from tonight?”

I would just smile and say, “You have led me to this place by the previous sermons. You wrote it. I didn’t.”

This year I’m not writing one. There just hasn’t been any inspiration. Maybe it’s me. My heart is in a very sad place right now. My friends and sisters and brothers in Syria and Iraq are not experiencing a silent night. I take hope from the fact that they are still there worshiping the same God who came to earth as an infant. I take hope in the fact that their voices are still lifted in worship. I take hope in the fact that they are still there serving those living through these days.

But my heart is not inspired to a Christmas poem this year.

Inside Joe Mbiy's home in Kumbo, Cameroon, summer 2001. This was the second time I had met Joe. The first was in Germany the year before. He has now completed seminary and been ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon.

Inside Joe Mbiy’s home in Kumbo, Cameroon, summer 2001. This was the second time I had met Joe. The first was in Germany the year before. He has now completed seminary and been ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon.

So I wanted to share the last one I wrote for George. And in it I mention another dear friend, a Cameroonian man I met in Germany in 2000. Upon visiting him in his country on a return trip there in 2004, he pulled me aside and told me his dream of becoming a pastor. (That’s Joe in the picture, standing with the hat on.)

Joe is one year older than me, making him 57. His birthday is tomorrow, December 22.

He had a fourth grade education when he asked me if my family might see the way to help him achieve his dream by attending seminary. I asked him how it was possible if he only had a fourth grade education. He said he would work to get his equivalency diploma allowing him to take the entrance exam.

Thinking this was a total impossibility, I told him we would pray about it. If he could make it that far, we would take him the rest of the way, never believing myself that it was possible.

Well the poem indicates that Joe did make it. He worked to get his equivalency diploma, all the time he was a father, grandfather, farmer and Sunday school agent for his church, the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon. He made it through seminary, and graduated at the top of his class.

Steve and Jana and I supported him for those four years of seminary and he worked as hard as anyone ever could.

Two weeks ago, we sent him an ordination gift. He is now Reverend Joe Mbiy.

This poem is for those two pastors from two different continents who inspire me even today. One has gone home to be with Jesus, and one is in Africa, six time zones to the east.

A Christmas Worth Remembering, 2011

My purse was full when I made my start
As I walked in, I grabbed for a cart.
The store was full of so many others:
There were brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.
This time of year we spend and spend
And Santa’s line, it has no end.
As far back as I can remember,
This is how we have spent December.
It’s Christmastime! The lights! The splendor!
The shopping that’s a never-ender.
A shirt, some shoes, a brand new jacket,
Toys and games that make a racket,
The cart it overflows with plenty,
And when I return my purse is empty.

This ritual of consumption seems so permanent,
and yet I wonder, should it be different?
What if instead of filling a cart,
I took a step and emptied my heart?
If I just stopped and took a deep breath,
and thought long ago of a nativity crèche,
The scene before me would surely reveal
A Christmas worth remembering, God’s ideal.

He asked a young girl to open her heart,
And bear his son, this plan to start.
Her simple peasant acquiescence,
Allowed room for this holy presence.
A song she sang to worship fully,
Her soul glorifies the Lord most holy.
She and her mate had nought to spend,
But with this gift to us portend
That in giving all they had to give
They showed God’s plan on how to live.

To empty my cart and open my heart
I can give to just one, it’s a step; it’s a start.
How easily love can be made manifest
I can give even more, maybe even the rest!

For the story we hear every year on this night
Is about a little babe born to set it all right.
He is the word of our God, sent to us in the flesh
It’s him we should worship, much more and not less.
He spent all he had, his life, in his giving.
To show us the way to love while we’re living.

So when he asks me, and my answer is “yes,”
I should look forward, and not second guess.
As I think back on my “yesses” in this year that has passed
I look in my cart to see what I’ve amassed.
My brother in Cameroon shall soon be called “Reverend,”
I’ve worshiped in Basra, I’ve gone where he’s sent.
I’ve sung in the choir, in the plate I’ve put treasure,
I’ve given my all in ways I can’t measure.

I thank you for helping me have vision to see
That the love of my Jesus, is all that I need.
He gave up his life for the sake of us all,
And that’s what he asks when we answer his call.
This answer does mark us, it makes us distinct
That’s what you told me, at least what I think!
That’s your gift to me in this month of December.
It surely will be a Christmas to remember.

Merry Christmas George!
Peace to you and to all in 2012

Persistence

julie-with-kids-at-zahle-camp.jpgWhen Steve and I started dating, we use to wrestle with each other. It was good, honest fun, I tell you. A 6’3″ gorgeous dark-haired man wrestling a 5’5″ woman, eighty pounds in weight under his. He had me in size, in weight, in strength. But the one thing I had in bigger quantity than him was persistence. I would keep coming back, even when he had both my arms pinned. I wouldn’t stop. I just wouldn’t say “uncle”!

I may not ever have won one of those awesome matches, but I never gave up!

One definition for persistence is this:

firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition

I have seen it other places besides my wrestling matches with Steve.

I have seen it in my sisters Susan and Jana. Their car hit by a train in 1983, and both severely wounded, neither gave up. Susan marched through her injuries and continued her studies at Colorado State University to become a veterinarian. Today she is a married woman of over 25 years and the vet you want your animals to have in an ER in Loveland, Colorado. She runs, she bikes, she camps and canoes, and she is an amazing nature photographer. (She is afraid of spiders, but that is another story!)

Susan never said “uncle.”

Anyone who knows Jana has seen the personification of persistence. We siblings who have known her all our lives refer to it more as stubbornness, but it is the same thing. Doctors said she would never recover and it was best just to let her go. Three weeks after the accident, although deeply in coma, her heart and brain would not quit, so they did surgery to repair all her broken bones. Doctors said she would never walk once she did come out of the coma. Six months after the surgery to repair those broken bones, she walked back into the Longmont United Hospital to embrace the doctor who did the surgery. She has traveled to Australia, Ecuador, Germany and the Czech Republic, and she has been back over and over to Washington, D.C., to advocate for poor and hungry people all over the world.

Jana has never said “uncle.”

Persistence. Stubbornness. Whatever you want to call it, we don’t say “uncle.”

There is a great parable in Luke chapter 18 that has been with me all week about another woman of stubborn persistence. And even though I am not a widow pleading my case before a judge, I am feeling some of her frustration and the need to persist:

Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him: ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me!’

“He never gave her the time of day. But after this went on and on he said to himself, ‘I care nothing what God thinks, even less what people think. But because this widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice—otherwise I’m going to end up beaten black-and-blue by her pounding.’”

Then the Master said, “Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?” (Luke 18:1-8, The Message)

Maybe I am impatient, but my cause is just. I don’t have a judge to plead to. But I have a persistent prayer about helping my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have been trying to use Facebook and Twitter and email to share the story of the church in Lebanon and Syria and Iraq with as many people as I can. I am trying to create an Internet flashmob, for lack of a better term. If you are my friend on Facebook, perhaps you are sick of my posts by now, but I can’t stop. They all contain the link below and I am trying to get it to go viral, so instead of the 320 views it has now, it will have 3,200 or 32,000…or 3,200,000!

Hope came down and pitched its tent is a mash up of John 1:14 and Hebrews 11:1:

The word became flesh and dwelled among us.

Now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.

Those two verses have been with me for most of the past year as I came home from a trip to Lebanon and Syria. The children in that refugee camp had no business to be singing joyful songs and dancing with us in innocence. Didn’t they know where they were? Couldn’t they see the desolation of nothingness around them? The outhouses? The putrid drainage ditch? No parks, no trees…nothing!

And that’s when it came to me that they were seeing something else. They were seeing it with the eyes of their heart…with hope.

And they are persistent in their joy, and stubborn in their singing and dancing. They won’t say “uncle.”

And what they did see with their eyes and feel in warm embraces was the love of Christ in the person of Assis Fadi and Assis Ramsey, pastors of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. They hope because someone has given them something to hope for. The church has been walking in the camps bringing food and supplies and, well, love. They have been caring for others not in camps by supplying food and rent vouchers and helping children stay in school. They have provided medical care to those who need it.

In the midst of a war, surrounded by death and chaos, they have not said “uncle.”

And on their behalf, neither will I.

The people I sleep with

Assis Boutrous Zaour, his wife Wafa and their three children, all amazing young people!

Assis Boutrous Zaour, his wife Wafa and their three children, all amazing young people!

Assis Joseph Kassab with me and Assis Adeeb Awad

Assis Joseph Kassab with me and Assis Adeeb Awad

Since Steve and I got married on May 18, 2002, we have slept in the same bed every night, with very few exceptions. It’s expected that a married couple would share the same bed, right? Well, I guess Lucy and Ricky on the old sitcom had separate beds, or at least that was the way early television and movies would have it!

The truth is, there have always been many people that went to bed with me before I met Steve…

Talal, a refugee from Aleppo, whom we met in the refugee camp

Talal, a refugee from Aleppo, whom we met in the refugee camp

I used to start my prayers every night with

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Guard me safely through the night
And let me see the morning light.

That is not the way everyone said that prayer, but it was the way it was printed on the night light in the bedroom I shared with my sisters when we were very small. That’s where I learned that prayer when I could first read. Years later when I learned the version that went, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,” it scared me that anyone could pray that way. “The morning light” vs. dying before waking, was a much brighter vision!

Either way, those prayers were always followed by the Lord’s Prayer, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be and then my list of family and friends whom I wanted God to protect and bless. It was a long list of people that came to bed with me.

Gladys Aboud of the synod in Beirut and Hala Bitar, a teacher at the Beirut Evangelical School for Girls and Boys

Gladys Aboud of the synod in Beirut and Hala Bitar, a teacher at the Beirut Evangelical School for Girls and Boys

There are many people that I pray for regularly. I think it is part of my call as a follower of Jesus to bring those I love and he loves before him; to bring to the foot of the cross all those I carry burdens for. I love them; he loves them more. He knows all their names before I speak them and what a comfort it is to walk with a God like that.

I still pray for my family. Oh! How I want their safety, their provision, their comfort. Let them see the morning light! I can’t help thinking as I sleep that I have many family already sitting with God in glory who died before I woke, their souls taken to a place where there is no worry. My mom. My dad. My baby sister Cathy. All are safe on the other side.

Rola Sleiman, the preacher at the church in Tripoli, a graduate of the Near East School of Theology

Rola Sleiman, the preacher at the church in Tripoli, a graduate of the Near East School of Theology

But here on this side of heaven, are still so many.

And this night and the next, they all go to bed with me and Steve. He is as aware of them as me. Steve has traveled to their homes with me to walk with them and learn from them what faith is. They pray for us. We pray for them. And God loves and knows us all.

Assis Boutrous Zaour and Assis Ma'an Bitar

Assis Boutrous Zaour and Assis Ma’an Bitar

Sleep has been much harder to come by lately and I’m trying to find ways to encourage my body to get to a restful state so once I am in bed, sleep will come. Last evening I took a half hour’s walk as the sun was still up but with a shadow cast upon it by the moon as a partial eclipse was happening. And as I walked my mind had a slideshow, a veritable mental Power Point of all the people who come to bed with me: pastors and preachers and leaders of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, pastors, elders and kindergarten teachers in Iraqi churches, refugees from Iraq who had been in Syria, refugees from Syria now in Lebanon. Ordinary people living ordinary lives in extraordinary times, loving God in the act of loving their neighbors.

Mary Mikhael, past president of the seminary in Beirut

Mary Mikhael, past president of the seminary in Beirut

And even as a shadow is cast over them right now, just like the moon was trying to blot out the brilliance of the sun last night, we know from the the scripture, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Guard me safely through the night…and let me see the morning light.

Amen.

#hopecamedown