Category: a hope and a future (Page 19 of 20)

From the Archives: What does 9/11 have to do with Jesus?

September 11, 2014 / Michele Minehart

My FB feed erupted in people remembering a day that has been etched in our brain. We all recall where we were, who we were with and our reactions to the towers falling. Each year we turn our hearts and our memories to those closest to the horror and revisit their stories.

It’s a natural phenomenon, to remember and relive, even such horrific events. Our country bore a tragedy together which shaped us individually and as a nation. We tell one another, “Never forget” but do we know why? Not just to honor the victims, though they deserve a place in prayer and reflection. But I think remembering 9/11 goes deeper than a national holiday. I think our experience of September 11th exposed something we didn’t realize had anything to do with the message of Jesus.

After reflecting on Esther and Daniel, I let it sink in how they were living in captivity, mastered by another people group and government. I realized how within the story of the people of God lies a story of struggle against control and power and oppression. Being a 21st century American, it’s a piece of the Gospel puzzle that I – we – simply cannot fully wrap our minds around.

God begins his work with Abraham, promising him a nation and a land. A place to call home. A land where he would reap what he sewed, and would eat what he planted. Throughout the story of Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua the people of God journeyed toward what they hoped would be sovereignty. Fast forward and they finally find themselves in the Promised Land. It’s good for a while, until the people forget God. So the Babylonians move in, take over and haul them out of their own country to be slaves.

All of this makes for great story behind a pulpit or on a flannel board, but I just don’t think we completely fathom what was happening. Another country, another king, marched in, killed a bunch of their men, tore families from their homes and their gardens and their schools and their neighbors, and took them someplace else so they could be servants. Even after the nation of Israel is allowed to return, remnants don’t make it back, such as Esther.

We were born into freedom. I’m not much of a flag waver, but I think those of us who follow Jesus owe our predecessors a bit more regard than what we often realize. And not just those who fought and are fighting; but a realization that we are living a part of the Gospel promise.

American Christianity lacks a firm understanding of how the gospel of Jesus freed us not just from sin (though it did) but it paved the way to living free of a master. Unlike Daniel and Esther, we live free of fear from someone mandating we bow down to anything other than what we believe to be true. We are truly able to serve only God.

The events of 9/11 shook us because it introduced to our generation the concept that freedom is not a guarantee. We can be tormented and attacked. Someone could – and did – cross our boundaries and threaten the promises we often take for granted.

For the people of God, they lived 9/11 occurrences frequently. Some, for their entire existence, lived under a foreign regime. Don’t you suffer shortness of breath to think about what if Al Quida had won and conquered? What if bin Laden had somehow gained control? That same anxiety is what generations and generations of people woke up to each and every day. I’m sure somewhere, some still do.

I believe imagining those situations will lead us in the direction of the fullness of what Jesus did. His entire life was under Roman rule. He spoke of power and authority and freedom and love because it was very real to his situation.

Nowadays we cannot fathom what he really meant because we have no collective memory of such a life. So we align our Biblical freedoms to that of freedom from sin, freedom from legalism and a very moralist vein emerges. And while those things are true (we are free from sin and legalism), it is also true that we are free from oppressive powers.

September 11th needs to remain “forever in our hearts” because it scratched an old wound we forget existed. But we cannot stop there: if we are living the hope of so many generations, a freedom from oppression, then what will we do with it?

Right now we take that freedom and argue about taxes and medical terminology. And while those discussions have its place, I believe followers of Jesus should get a bit more serious about using our place of privilege (much like Esther and Daniel) and go about the work of extending the Kingdom of God to others. And not just in a have-a-tract, say-a-prayer, have-a-blessed-day kind of way. And certainly not using a typical American, because-our-way-is-the-best-way approach. If the freedom from oppression can and did become reality, then we have to believe that the rest of what Jesus said could be true.

Perhaps we need to get serious about the things which continue to torment God’s beloved in the rest of the world. Perhaps our little city on a hill should shine its light into the evils that plague other places, rather than just sitting so cozy in our safe little haven. And not politically (because I firmly believe that God didn’t grant us freedom so we can occupy someone else), but living justly, loving mercy and walking humbly in the many large and small ways that can change lives everywhere.

**Patriot Day is a political, American holiday – no matter one’s faith belief. I’m not taking something that belongs to everyone in the US and saying it’s only for Christians. I am saying that those of us who follow Jesus need to also realize that the events of 9/11 have deeper implications. I’m saying that when we cry watching the footage for the 11th time it’s for a reason – and not only an American one, but a human one, one that Jesus spoke to. All faith beliefs belong to our occasion of remembering.

Bottomless Pit

August 17, 2014 / Michele Minehart

I love to eat. I enjoy healthy food and junk food, salads and McNuggets (though I certainly have tried to curb the latter). I even accepted Indian food into my life again earlier this summer after avoiding it for 8 years following my trip there. (Turns out it I didn’t dislike the food – it was the aroma of dog and feces which invaded my experience that turned me off.) I snack frequently and look forward to social interactions because they likely include food.

Should I be so surprised that my kids also enjoy it? I’m thrilled about this. So far, they eat with a broad palate. We make lunches of sliced bell peppers, cucumbers and hummus or soups. A bean and rice bowl is met by willing mouths. And, like their parents, my kids enjoy dessert. I try very hard to approach all food – even those made of dairy or including gluten, which we avoid – as gifts so we don’t have “bad food” and “good food”. It’s all good. Some of it makes us feel crummy later – specifically H boy and mama.

This evening Lady C tried to convince me that we didn’t eat lunch. Which is completely false because today was McCommunion. Then we went to a picnic with church family for dinner. I reviewed with her our gluttonous menu plan, reiterating we ate 3 full meals plus snacks and daddy generously gave her one of Grandma’s Monster Cookies before bed. Yet the girl insisted that we missed a meal. (Come on. As if her Mama could ever do that.)

As I repeated our 3-meal-2-snack life, I couldn’t help but remember the many kids (and adults!) in places near and far who ate a quarter of such food. I’m guessing that research could provide evidence that we ate more today than most people in the rest of the world. (I tried a basic google search to find a statistic which would catch the eye of you numbers-driven people. However, I got dizzy and a little depressed after my first search result from the World Hunger Education Service).

We walk a fine line with our kids when it comes to waste and abundance. We want them to know they will never be in need – their family will take care of them. That’s not a worry for them to take on themselves. However, we also want to instill in them a sense of responsibility that comes with our privileged place in society.

“Starving kids in China” didn’t really work much for our generation – I wanted to send my mom’s roast over as an offering of my concern – but I don’t want my kids to leave the house thinking that food is a limitless supply. In our circumstance, yes, we can always buy more. But not everyone can. And when we do that – when we toss it in our garbage instead of our mouths, we are removing it from the shelves and changing the economics involved to get needed resources to the people who need them most.

In general, if a full meal is presented yet not consumed by one of our children, it waits on the table for snack time as a second chance and no snack will be served until most (a word defined only by mom and dad) is eaten. I simply can’t bear to throw away one bowl of food only to refill it immediately with another. Is it so bad to allow my children to feel hunger once in a while? They’re much easier to deal with when well fed, and I’m not advocating a 40-day fast in any sense, but is our easy access to nutritious food standing in the way of naturally learning the virtue of self-control and perhaps even generosity?

The Report said that nearly a third of the world population is living on a diet equivalent to $1.25 each day. Now that Wendy’s jacked up their Value Menu, you can’t even get a single sandwich for that, let alone 3 squares and 2 snacks. And we’re not talking about produce. That budget will get you a bag of organic apples for the entire week and nothing else. Can you imagine your week’s groceries consisting of a bag of apples for each person?

A friend of mine pastors a church that spends the end of the Lenten season in a Week of Solidarity to gain an understanding of life for the poor around the world. They use the season of fasting to eat only what $1.25 will purchase and spend time praying for those in need and giving their remaining grocery and food budget to organizations devoted to feeding the hungry. After this evening’s brief discussion, I’m wondering how I might differentiate that for the children so they can begin to understand that the joy of food doesn’t come just in cookie form.

How do we begin to make a lifestyle of acknowledging that our satiation isn’t a reality for all people without heaping guilt upon them every time we sit at the table? I feel a healthy tension is required, one that doesn’t result in worried souls but rather compassionate and aware little humans. I want them to keep their healthy appreciation of food and eat so their little bodies grow strong. It’s not the food that is the enemy: it’s our casual indifference to the waste of it.

Cracked Pots

July 10, 2014 / Michele Minehart

[box] “My understanding is not that there’s a devil outside, prowling Pali Park or the Parkade. But that there’s something inside that’s always bored, that beckons us, knowing what it is we each want most desperately. And adolescents have fewer defenses.”
“Do you think that we’re wired this way? With the devil inside?”
“Yeah, in the same way we’re wired for God. But not to the same extent. I think it’s tiny, and insidious. Like hairline cracks that let in the water that shatters the rock.” (From Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott) [/box]

There is a man, an acquaintance, someone who shared a small (but yet significant) space in our lives for a brief time. After a tough season in his marriage and consequent divorce, perhaps some work concerns and definitely some personal issues, he stood on shaky ground with his immediate family. Rather than hearing he has climbed his way out of a dark place, he seems to instead be burrowing deeper. Most recently his mother died of a terminal illness; while sitting at her bedside he used the opportunity take his sick mother’s phone and send hurtful texts about his ex-wife.

My heart became overwhelmed with one question: How does a person get to that place? One consumed with competition, anger, control, so much that he would miss out on pivotal and significant moments in life in exchange for the brief and fleeting feeling of victory over others (or whatever the drug of choice may be for a particular person).

In our family’s past we’ve dealt with another person, one who seemed to carry a leaking darkness with him through the world. My soul became conflicted on how to feel about the person: on the one hand, he is a child of God, created in His image. On the other hand, my inner spirit could feel something dripping from him that was not of God. I couldn’t put a finger on it, the intangible quality went deeper than the drugs or poor life decisions.

Yet we encounter those other people. The ones you meet at a random gathering and you want to sit at their feet and let their goodness seep into your clothes, hoping to carry home its scent the way Grandma’s soft fragrance of candy and Skin So Soft might stay with you if you hugged her long enough. Our world is equally full of people permeating our atmosphere with the good, the holy, the yes-that’s-it!-ness of life. Let us not be quick to forget that.

I can’t believe that God would make some people, for lack of better words, more virtuous and others, not so much. Something in me wants to believe we all get some semblance of a fair shot. Not equal – many overcome more obstacles in their path – but dark and light can’t be pre-determined in people.

Anne Lamott writes in Imperfect Birds about the devil not being “out there” in the world, an issue for humanity as a whole to overcome, but rather hairline cracks that let in the water that shatters the rock. Is that how it happened with those fellas? As the darkness, the hate, the ugh! of this world slipped in, it created bigger holes. Eventually, often, comes a shattering point.

Perhaps our fragile, imperfect and cracked condition makes it hard to stand up to the darkness. But what if. What IF! What if we filled that vessel of our lives with something else, something good, something stronger than ourselves. The Light on the inside stands up to the pressures of the outside, rejecting the parts and pieces we would rather leave behind.

[box] For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:6-9)[/box]

I wonder if every decision we make is a matter of choosing good or evil, light or darkness. When we succumb to the pull of our selfish nature, it widens the cracks. Conversely, when we choose to live by light, it pushes the pressure outward and seals up those cracks and makes it harder for the waters of darkness to flood inward where we might drown.

No one wakes up in the morning determined to live by cruelty and anger. He or she gets there one decision at a time until our vessel shatters.

Category: a hope and a future (Page 19 of 20)

From the Archives: What does 9/11 have to do with Jesus?

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