Christmas lights

I’ve always liked Christmas lights. Especially many-colored lights. Particularly against a dark background. The twinkling effect of many small colored lights against a night sky, or on a dimly-lit street is quite striking.

I realized this again this past week as I was walking to the store. The street wasn’t well-lit, and the house was just lit by the colored lights. Each bulb was small, and not very powerful.

But taken together, against the darkness of the surroundings, they were very effective.

Of course, I started thinking deeper than the science of light and electricity. You may already have arrived at the same point I arrived at:
• White is a fine color, but the variety of different colors adds so much more flavor. So it is with each of us. Our style, our theology, our gifts. And you probably remember your elementary science—put all of these colors together, and you get white light. So it is in God’s Kingdom. It takes the combined force of all of our differences to begin to adequately reflect the white of God’s light. Individually, we are just a part—and each part is necessary to make a complete whole.
• Lights are most visible and useful against the darkness. You probably don’t have your outdoor Christmas lights on during the day, because no one would see them anyway. But at night, they shine brightly. So it is with us. Although we love to hang out in church with all of the other similar sources of light, we are most effective when we shine where things are dark.
• It doesn’t take a powerful wattage in order to make inroads against the darkness. Even if you think you aren’t very bright, get out there and shine!

For Tyler

A young man named Tyler committed suicide a few days ago. He left a note on his Facebook page: “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.”

No matter how often something like this happens, it’s a tragedy.

This story is even sadder than sad.

It turns out that Tyler was a recent high school graduate who had just begun university. His roommate secretly set his webcam to spy on him having a sexual encounter in his dorm room, and then sent the video feed to some of his friends.

When Tyler discovered what his roommate had done, he was so humiliated that he posted the Facebook message, drove to the George Washington Bridge in New York, and jumped to his death.

Tyler was an accomplished violinist whose music touched everyone.

Although the roommate who posted the video isn’t known to be a bad guy, he had posted this on Twitter: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my Web cam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

Apparently, Tyler’s parents didn’t know he was gay.

So here we have an incredibly sad and tragic story. A young man is trying to cope with being gay. For whatever reasons, he wasn’t able to share this innermost secret with his family, so wasn’t able to get any support there.

Then, when it seems the whole world is about to find out his secret, the humiliation overwhelms him and he finds no solution but to end it all.

A wonderful life cut short.
A talented young man no longer able to move others with his music.
A student who isn’t able to live out his dreams.
Another young gay kid who hasn’t been able to find the support he needs to be able to stand against the tide of homophobia around him.

Nothing is said in the news reports I read about this (here and here) regarding matters of faith or church connections. But you can well imagine the lack of support he would have received in many church settings. I can just imagine the lack of sympathy this whole story generates, once the detail of his gayness becomes known. (As a point of interest, did your feelings about Tyler change once you discovered he was gay?)

And perhaps that is almost as big a tragedy as the death of Tyler Clementi.

Tyler, society failed you. We failed you. We didn’t stand with you, or let you know you were safe and loved and accepted.

Let’s take some steps to change things for the next Tyler.

Everybody needs a hero

I’m a sucker for an honest, great story. We have lots of stories of bad guys. Today we need a story of a great guy.
This weekend honors one of Canada’s greatest heroes.
No, he’s not a professional athlete. Or an actor or musician. He’s not a politician or businessman.
No, he’s a guy who died before he turned 23. But in his life and in his death he exhibited qualities that make him a legitimate world-class hero.

He is Terry Fox.
He lost his right leg to cancer before the age of 20. And then decided he was going to run across the country to raise money and awareness for cancer research. And not just a couple miles a day. He set out to run a marathon (42.195 kilometers, over 26 miles) every day.

Since he grew up in British Columbia (my side of the country), he decided to start on the other side, and run towards home. His goal was to raise $1 for every Canadian (at that time, 24,000,000). He dipped his right leg into the water off Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 and set out.

Of course it wasn’t easy.
Of course there was pain.
Early mornings.
Dodging traffic.
Weather.
Terrain.

But there were the good times.
He got to meet some of his heroes.
To meet others who were struggling with cancer.
To receive the nickels and dimes and dollars of generous people.
To discover that he was winning the heart of the nation.
But the cancer came back and halted his run at 5373 km (3339 mi) at Thunder Bay, Ontario. Although he wanted to come back and complete the run, he passed away June 28, 1981—1 month before his 23rd birthday.


By this point his Marathon of Hope had indeed raised over $24,000,000.
But that isn’t the end of the story.
He had lit the fire under Canadians. By September of 1981, plans came together for a country-wide Terry Fox Run in communities large and small to continue to raise money.
So, every September on the 2nd Sunday after Labor Day the Terry Fox Run is held, now in dozens of countries. Over $500 million has been raised in Terry’s honor.

Sure, it’s easy to complain about the sorry state of the world.
But this weekend we remember Terry.
He makes me proud to be a Canadian.
I’m proud to be part of a country that gave rise to a man like Terry.

Now go and make a difference in your world.

(click to enlarge)
This plaque is located where Terry would have completed his Marathon of Hope, had he been able to make it here to Victoria.

What does loving your neighbor really mean?

I followed my friend the weary pilgrim to a blog called Hugh’s Views.

Here are Hugh’s notes from a presentation he made at Big Tent Christianity. To whet your appetite, here are a few excerpts, but you definitely need to read the whole thing for the full benefit.

According to Jesus, loving your neighbor is half of the greatest commandment. Pretty much everyone agrees that, if taken seriously, it’s a radical idea that could change the world. And yet it seems nearly impossible for American Christians, liberal or conservative, to agree on what it looks like.

Loving your neighbor presupposes a relationship. It means knowing your neighbor is going through a divorce, that the lady who cleans your office has a mother that is dying, that the man at the end of the street holding a cardboard sign has been outside for three years now, and his name is Brian. In the story we call the Good Samaritan, it meant getting in the ditch to bind the man’s wounds yourself.

When the average person in the pews can tell you the names of all the Judges on American Idol, or can name all the Glee cast members, but does not know a soul that makes 1/4th their income, I think it is fair to say we have lost our sense of mission as co-creators of the Kingdom of God.

Here in Wake County, the official statistics say there are approximately 1200 homeless people. And many hundreds of Christian congregations. You cannot tell me that out of the many thousands of Christian homes represented by those churches, there are not 1200 empty beds somewhere. Of course there are. But we save those beds for people we actually know.

Jesus expects us to storm down those gates [Matthew 16:18] and invade Hell itself. Jesus is telling us to go to Hell to be with the drug addict and the alcoholic. Go to Hell to be with the victims of abuse, and with the abusers. Go to hell and liberate the adulterer, the homeless man, the pornographer. In hell is where we will find the single mother and the embezzler, the pimps and the pimped, the hungry, the broken, the forgotten. We, you and I together, should be wading into hell itself and proclaiming that there is a new way to live and a new way to love, and that new way is bringing about the justice of God.

Read his full notes here. Thanks to the weary pilgrim, and especially to Hugh for a pretty straight-forward understanding of a pretty obvious principle—that most of us totally ignore.

Sometimes life sucks

Sometimes my life is good, but since a friend is struggling with something, then life still sucks, just not my life.

And then, sometimes it seems that life is really quite OK. Things kinda fall into place. The things that matter to you also matter to other people, and together you can git er done.

Like CARTS.

CARTS Victoria is a local street outreach that I have been a part of for about 4 years. It’s been around for over 7. CARTS stands for Christian Actions Reflecting The Spirit. And it also stands for the green four-wheeled wagons that we pull around the streets of Victoria once a week bringing food, clothes, and love to our street family.

CARTS was started by two wonderful ladies. Sisters. As one person put it, ‘They aren’t nuns, but they are saints.’ For over 7 years most of what CARTS is has operated out of their home, their garage, a shed in their back yard, their kitchen, their car, their time, their energy. You get the picture. Sure, others of us help, but it was still them doing most of the work.

A few weeks ago we heard from the company that operates the downtown parking lot where we gathered every week (before heading out on the streets) that we were no longer welcome in their lot. They had their reasons, and that is fine, but it nudged us to a place where we had several decisions to make.

Today we had a meeting of many of our volunteers (about 25 or so). We needed, among other things, to relieve the load that these 2 dear ladies had carried for these 7+ years.

And together, we figured out a new scenario that looks like it is going to work well for everyone.

The two ladies still will have an opportunity for their passion and compassion to reach out to the streets, but more of us will share the load.

I knew we could figure it out, but I didn’t know if we had the people power to take up the slack. I really didn’t know if we would still be CARTS, or if things would need to be scaled back so much that we would kinda fizzle.

But, we were of a mind to git er done! New ideas, sorting out of who we really are, and a willingness to take responsibility.

We still have more decisions to be made, but we made some great strides today.
Sometimes life sucks.

But not today.

Wheat and weeds

So, if we aren't supposed to be making enemies (For or against), what does Jesus tell us about dealing with things/people we may not think are correct?

Well, another of his stories comes to mind. And this one has always seemed a little strange to me as well.
Here it is: Matthew 13:24-30.

He told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field.
That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn.
When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.
"The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?'
"He answered, 'Some enemy did this.' "The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?'
"He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too.
Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'" (The Message)

However you understand the weeds (ideas, sins, people), the fact remains. Jesus said we are to leave the weeding up to him.

But what about....?
I don't know. I just see here that Jesus is more worried about the life of the wheat than the death of the weeds.

By the way, I see a similarity with 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 where Paul talks about “gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble”, where God will identify what is good and what isn't.

Yes, he definitely wants us to be of value, to be legitimate and 'rightly divide the word of truth'. But I've seen an awful lot of un-Christlike attitudes and actions masquerading as an obsession with truth.

And my hope that people learn to get along (last post) means that both you and I will have to be less concerned about fault finding, and more concerned about encouraging each other—even if we don't agree. That's easy for me to encourage you to do, but not nearly so easy to encourage myself to do.

For or against

I find it so easy to worry about someone else's orthodoxy. To see their theology as being wrong, their philosophy as wrong, their style as being wrong. If not wrong, then at least as less valuable or right than mine, and in need of being changed.

As I find my own understanding of things being adjusted, I want to see everyone else see things the same way I do. I have seen the light, so should you.

And if you don't (or won't), I shouldn't have anything to do with you. Since you aren't in complete agreement with me, I should consider you as an enemy, an outcast. How can my light have fellowship with your darkness?

I know this isn't the right way to look at such things, and I'm working on it. I really try to emphasize relationships over orthodoxy, friendships over 'truth'.

But somehow it still seems skewed and twisted. Shouldn't I be standing up for correct doctrine, making sure truth prevails? Isn't it my responsibility to keep the faith pure?

Well, no. At least not to that extent.

The church is already divided. Very divided. There are around 38,000 (or more) Christian denominations. Every one probably claiming to be more correct than everyone else. Every one probably claiming to have God and the Bible on their side.

But today I was reminded of Jesus' words in Luke 9: 49 and 50.

And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid [him] not: for he that is not against us is for us. (KJV)

John spoke up, "Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't of our group." Jesus said, "Don't stop him. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally." (The Message)

The parallel passage in Mark 9:38-40 (The Message):

John spoke up, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't in our group."
Jesus wasn't pleased. "Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down.
If he's not an enemy, he's an ally.

I've wondered about these verses before. Is Jesus really telling us that we can be friends, even if we disagree? Yes.
Is he suggesting that it is more important to dialog than to debate? You betcha.
Is he encouraging us to look for similarities instead of differences? Absolutely.
Is he telling us that being right isn't the most important thing? That's the way it looks to me.

It's long past time to drop the arrogance, to stop crying “Foul” every time someone has a different take on something than we do.
It's time to get down off our soapboxes and start shaking hands.
It's time to look for friends instead of enemies, those who are with us, not against us.

Sure, God probably has a list of absolutes, those things that determine whether someone is 'in' or 'out', whether they are with us or not.
But I'm sure that list isn't based on the criteria that many Christians would like to use. It's not as nit-picky as we tend to be.

Our responsibility is to love each other. We can leave the sorting out up to God.