Who’s in charge here anyway?!
Taking a cue from popular blogging practice, I hereby point you to this interesting news story:
Piece of Supreme Court marble falls near tourists – Nov 28, 2006 – USA Today
Apparently many of us who believe that the Universe and our lives are less than random occurrences have already been blogging up a storm about this one. (see the Washington Post’s version of the story). To those who see a “divine conspiracy theory” in every action that leads to only one conclusion I’d like to offer a few observations and/or opinions:
So, with that in mind, I will give my interpretation of this little incident of crumbling marble. It was a piece of “moulding” that fell off and struck the figure “Authority” and the inscription “Equal Justice Under Law” at the Supreme Court building. To me it was God tapping His finger on those two things with respect to the country and to the Supreme Court, and saying, “Church, you all need to address these two issues in your intercession and your action…and now is the time to do it.”
We know from our own lives that God doesn’t put His finger on every thing that isn’t perfect all at once. If it were so, we’d be crushed in a split-second. Rather He points out the issues that He wants to be dealt with now and other things will be pointed out when the time is right (or in the “fullness of time” to use more biblical terminology).
So, now perhaps is the “fullness of time” for issues of Authority and Justice in the United States to be aligned under the King of Kings and the great Judge of all. So, in remembering that our battle is not against flesh and blood, are we ready to take some marching orders from the Supreme Commander?
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Language Heaven, Language Hell…
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you…
Hogwash!
It’s been clear since God created the world simply by speaking, that words have unlimited power. God Himself saw that His best recourse against the rebellion and pride of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was to pull the verbal rug out from underneath the construction crew. Voilà, rebellion stopped dead in its tracks… In the Gospel of John, Jesus, the King of Kings is called The Word.
Even in non-ecclesiastical circles, one finds that the pen is mightier than the sword (attributed both to Ben Franklin and Edward Bulwer-Lytton…go figure), the world is full of influential writings, and of course there is the Internet…dare I mention Blogging!?
For our family, language acquisition has been an abiding and profound reality in the last 5 or so years. Even before that, Angela and I had an above average amount of language training in our school years.
Why? Well the motivations run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. I think behind all of it is a deposit from God in our deepest parts to draw us toward other people; to live the reality that our God is a relational God and has made us in His image.
For us all, learning French has been a very rewarding adventure. There are unending layers of discovery and depth of relationship that have been opened up to us because of the work to learn another language. There is a bit of satisfaction when one aces a test on some obscure conjugation of irregular verbs, but there is immense satisfaction in the joy of relating at a heart level with someone whose heart otherwise would have remained but a closed book on a shelf gathering dust to you…had you not studied for that conjugation test! ;c) There are many other moments of serendipity related to knowing another language…at any level.
Last week when Rachel and I went to Berlin, there were some very special moments like that as we obviously heard a lot of German, in addition to English and French. German is the foreign language that I first studied before French. I had a fair amount of it academically in Jr. High, High School and College, and of course, we did our YWAM DTS in Germany. Since then, it’s been so much French that I have a real difficulty in getting German out of my mouth, even if I can really understand what I need to say…more or less. Rachel studied German for the 1st time last year and really enjoyed it and now Noah is starting to study it and seems to be enjoying it too.
So, speaking a foreign language is all heavenly bliss…right?
Again, the appropriate response is: Hogwash!
When we were standing in the security check line at the airport to leave Berlin, Rachel was asked by the security official if her pockets were empty. It was asked in German. Rachel understood the question to be whether she had anything in her pockets. She said “nein” to the question she understood and assumed the posture of a person with nothing in her pockets. Of course the security guard, heard “no” to his question but saw the posture of a person who should have answered “ja”.
They understood quickly what needed to be understood, but what they did next stabbed my heart…all the security officials laughed heartily and mocked. Not a big deal in the cosmic scheme of things, but each time something like that happens when we try our best to communicate in another language, the accumulated vignettes of misunderstanding can wash over you afresh. You remember the blank looks you get from people you desperately want to communicate with; want to build a friendship with. It’s not always mocking from a stranger but it can really drain you! Of course, the enemy of our souls can have a heyday with this as well! This is a bit of what Language Hell can be like.
Thankfully, these are wonderful occasions to have our heart worked on by the Lord. We have the privilege to take up our cross and better learn the immeasurable humility of a God who would become man because of His passion for you and me. His willingness to be misunderstood, in order to ultimately be able to express infinite love is the very mandate of every person who has ever learned another language and used it as a tool to expand the Kingdom of God.
I saw a wonderful quote by Helen Keller recently in a newsletter by another American missionary family in France.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Our adventure may seem to be insignificant at the language level, but in reality, we’re risking “hell”, to bring Heaven here on earth each time we open our mouths and stumble through some French (or German) to connect at a heart-level and stand in the image of our heart-level God.
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Berlin-Congo 120 Years On…
This past weekend, my daughter and I witnessed history. We were just 2 of about 300 people, I would guess, who had this privilege…tied to a responsibility.
From November 1884 to February 1885 Berlin, Germany hosted a significant conference whose repercussions are still strongly felt today and are likely to be felt for awhile yet. We pray, however, that this past weekend will mark a significant shift in history and a different direction in the future.
As can be seen in the picture, this original conference 120 years ago focused its attention on the continent of Africa. The intent of the gathering of 13 European nations and the United States was to attempt to bring some order into the “Scramble for Africa” (the European Colonial Era in Africa). The participants (which included no Africans) desired to lay out some “rules of the game” to which the European colonial powers would theoretically adhere. The principal effect of the gathering being to draw up borders in Africa that would be used to denote where the influence and control of each colonizing nation began and where it ended. While the primary desire was avoid inevitable conflicts of colonial maneuvering. In fact, quite the opposite was the end result. Conflicts were not avoided in Africa, nor in Europe, where the activities of African colonization quite literally became the foundations of World War I…which led directly to World War II…and which are arguably the two defining events of the world in which we live today.
In addition to two World Wars, which are in and of themselves defining, the importance of the legacy of colonialism and, in particular this conference, cannot be overestimated. While the figures are difficult to come by exactly, it is estimated that nearly 10 million people died in the Congo alone during this period. When the clear link between this era and the World Wars is made, you quickly see another 10 million lives robbed. Then when one considers that instead of sending the flower of their youth onto the mission field, the two largest missionary-sending countries, Britain and Germany, sent their youth to die in the trenches of World War I fighting each other, you can see that Satan has had a hey-day of rage against humanity in the last 120 years.
This conference drew up borders in Africa with a regard only to commercial and political interest…of only the colonial powers. The fact that many tribes were split into 2 or 3 nations (perhaps with different official European languages imposed on them) and then put together in the same nation with tribes with which they already had a warring relationship, was of no interest to the participants of the original conference. It was of significant interest to the Africans of that time and today and it is of significant interest to those European powers as well as they eat today the fruit of those seeds planted 120 years ago.
This last weekend, we gathered at “Gemeinde Auf Dem Weg” (Church on the Way) in Berlin, Germany to take responsibility for our sins against Africa. No one is left from that time to confess, repent, ask forgiveness, reconcile, and offer restitution to our African brothers and sisters who themselves daily experience the results of the colonial era. God is looking for His Church to stand in the gap and apply the Blood of Jesus to this sin and place the Cross of Christ between our continents. That’s what we did this last weekend.
As you can see, just as 120 years ago, we too had a table around which all the delegates would sit. The big difference was that Africans were there! As you can see in the picture above, witnesses were there too. We had people who represented each of the nations who had been there around the table as well as Africans from, perhaps, about 20 different African nations.
We prayed, worshiped, testified, declared, wept, reconciled. We did this in English, French and German; representing not only the three most practical languages at this gathering, but also representing the 3 of the primary tongues that have been foisted upon Africa and representing strong colonizing nations that speak those languages. The translators worked tirelessly and, I think, prophetically as we sought to honor one another’s languages instead of use them as a weapon.
Personally we had the privilege to travel there with 2 ladies from our church, one of whom spoke German as well as French. So the 4 of us went as a team representing France, the United States, Alsace and our church. We had the opportunity to dine twice with a Congolese lady now living in South Africa. We heard her stories of the situation in the Congo and in South Africa. It was not always easy to hear especially as one hears views about Europe and the United States that are not all that flattering….and those are not opinions about past history but about today.
Now the question is what do we do with what we’ve heard. The more we know the greater our responsibility. I’ve not had a real heart for Africa but I know that we have a responsibility to live in such a way that the mind-sets with which we’ve conducted ourselves where Africa and Africans are concerned, must begin to be replace with those of the Kingdom of God. Our Imperialist and neo-Imperialist ways (I’m as guilty as anyone) need to be transformed by Jesus’s Kingdom ways. Lord help us!
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Very Strange Indeed
November 11th. Armistice Day. The End of WWI.
For non-European readers, this is a very important day in most of Europe. In the States, we celebrate Veteran’s Day and on the surface, the Veteran’s Day and Armistice Day celebrations are similar. There is another side, however, here in Europe where Death is swirling about as a constant reminder during this season.
Halloween, though controversial still, has taken a foothold, it would seem, in France. That leads into All Saints Day (“Toussaint”) where, in France, a virtual pilgrimage to cemeteries all around the country takes place. Families come together throughout the day on November 1st, some having traveled long distances, to put chrysanthemums on the grave sites of their family members. It should also be noted that this is a major national holiday season with a week and a half off of school leading up to All Saints Day.
Then comes November 11th where in virtually every village and hamlet veterans from every war that are still living come together with local dignitaries and townsfolk around the one of the ubiquitous war memorials. Speeches are made, church services are held, bands play and choirs sing.
This is a multi-layered phenomenon; a fact which makes it difficult to judge with a black and white judgment: “This is a good thing.” or “This is a bad thing.” I’m not against honoring courage and sacrifice, nor do I question the sincerity of those who participate in any given ceremony. If one can take a step back, however, and look at the whole of the season together and down throughout history, it can give one pause.
If we begin to understand what “worship” is (take at look at Genesis 22, where worship is mentioned for the first time in the Bible to get an idea of what worship is at its foundations and you’ll be surprised at all the preparation and ceremony involved), you can begin to see that worship is exactly what’s going on here. Unfortunately, as in much of our lives, we’re not aware when our actions and our very lives offer up worship to all sorts of deities other than to the real King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
It’s also important to realize that we offer up worship not just as individuals but collectively as well. Many, many of the activities of our daily lives reinforce the momentum of the collective whole and we’re completely unaware of it. In fact, if we acted “individually” as much as we think we do, we’d notice the effect of “swimming upstream” pretty quickly. Interesting that God calls us, as disciples of Jesus, to act collectively, but in a way that is “swimming upstream” with much of our current culture. It’s called living in the Kingdom of God…about which Jesus had much to say.
Back to this interesting season here in Europe. This year was particularly interesting as Ramadan, the 30 days of Muslim prayer and fasting culminated during this season of death, and the recent riots in Paris and elsewhere in France began during this season.
All of this lead several intercessory groups to take a stand together in a “swimming upstream” action that was called the “Strange Act”. You can read the Biblical justification of this action and also an analysis on Halloween in this Word document. The long and short of it was that many people around Europe placed a rock…a plain ordinary rock…at local war memorials. These were in contrast with the beautifully sculpted war memorials themselves. This spoke of The Rock of Ages and the rock uncut by human hands spoken of in Daniel 2 that would signal an empire that would vanquish all human empires and last forever.
It was this we celebrated the night of November 11th when we went up to Viel Armand/Hartmanswillerkopf, the scene of one of the most contested points in WWI…a very short drive from our house. We went in the evening expecting that we could be in peace and perform our act before God in obedience. We had thought that this national military cemetery would have hosted its Armistice Day ceremony during the day…oops!
We came at about 5pm when the sun had already sunk below the tops of the peaks in the Vosges mountains. We were greeted by a multitude of military personnel carriers and soldiers everywhere. The public was out in force as well. We parked (and left our prophetic sword in the car!!!) and went up to the main memorial location. The sight that greeted us can only be described as “an altar” with a ceremony just about to get underway. With the light of dusk and the torches and “flame pots”, giving out a flame and black smoke, it presented a very surreal picture (the photo doesn’t really do it justice).
We waited, watched and prayed. At the end of the ceremony, we were able to place our rocks and worship the God of the living, not the dead and proclaim life in Alsace and Europe. (Rachel, far right in the picture). Later that evening, near midnight, I participated with another intercessory group that went to the highest point in Alsace, the Grand Ballon, where there is, you guessed it, a war memorial!
We climbed up by moonlight in a cloudless sky but with a ferocious wind! We placed our stones by the great monument and then worshiped and prayed.
God is the God of the living…not the dead!
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