Heaven Invades Hell in Honduras

She is less than five feet tall but larger than life.  Her name is Maria Isabella, mother of eight children.  She is the quiet matriarch.  There is no patriarch. Her husband, who apparently regarded himself as a mere sperm donor, left after their eighth child was born.  She has been sole provider, comforter, teacher, protector for years.  She has raised them alone.  She works 60 hours a week in a little bakery.  The three adult daughters who live with her lament about growing up alone and left to themselves while their mom was making a living in order to provide for them.  There are tears as they look back on those early years.
Two of the three each have two little ones of their own. These eight and several other family members have shared existence in this hellhole of a shack for ten years.  It's dark, damp, and depressing inside.  They burn wood or anything they can find that is combustible in order to cook and heat.  The smoke permeates the shack.  The upper walls and ceiling are coal black.  And their lungs?
There is no room, no space, no privacy.  They can't afford dressers or containers, so everything is piled or stacked.  A fish-net hammock is hung inside; I look closer.  A little baby is lying in it.  No room for a bed, even if they could afford one.

They have been on the waiting list of families for whom Mercy International would build a house.  It's been two years.  Day after week after month--"Maybe today?"  Finally, their wait is over.
We arrived at their little father-forsaken but Father-favored shack last Sunday and we began digging trenches to serve as a foundation for the house of their dreams in an open, barren area in front of their shack.  20x24--or as a friend described it--"a garage and a half."  To them, though, a mansion.  Saturday, we left and in those 7 days we built them a house that will last them for generations.  I wish you could have seen the light in their eyes.  Their smiles. Their hugs of gratitude.  One of the daughters joyfully confessed, “I don't have words." Another, “I wish I could have a big party for all of you."  Maria Isabella thanked God and us.
I gathered several from the team and asked the family if we could pray for them.  They welcomed our prayers.  I asked them what they would like us to pray for.  A daughter quietly said, "Food."  I was speechless.  I'm sixty-two years old and there has never been a single day of my life when I have ever prayed that I would have food.  I was humbled by her earnest request.  I asked if there was anything else she would like us to pray for.  Work so they have income.  Peace in their family.
This family now has shelter.  Concrete block, concrete floor and metal roof never looked so extravagant.
I visited a family for whom we had built a house this past Spring.  Momma looked good and her 16 year old daughter, Kenya, was full of smiles as she held her two year old, Melbie, in her arms and a growing child in her belly.  I was surprised at her pregnancy, though she is not the exception, and saddened.  We hugged and re-connected.  Just a day passed and I was talking with Momma and she was particularly distressed.  I inquired and she told me that in the last 24 hours someone had "deceived Kenya" with a the promise of a job and this stranger convinced her to leave her mother and Melbie and travel with her to the capital city, Tegucigalpa, and work there.  Tegucigalpa is a city of 1.7 million people, and a 5-6 hour drive away.  Momma doesn't own a cell phone and has no idea what is happening to her daughter.  What depths of lies or persuasion--coercion?-- could convince Kenya to leave her little boy and mother on a moment's notice?  What will become of Melbie?  How does a little boy deal with mom abruptly leaving him?  Life was hard enough with her family intact; what worry must  now consume Momma each day as she wonders if she will ever see her daughter again and if she does will Kenya be dead or alive?  Life had been weighing on her enough and now she has sole responsibility for Melbie, also.  It's hell.

Yet, I would not be providing an accurate picture if I left it at that.  There are moments of heaven as team members hug all these kids who are often discarded.  Glimpses of heaven as the kids laugh and frolic with the team.  The team gives their undivided attention and unconditional love and for some moments these kids do not have a care in the world. It's heaven.

Today, I ask you to thank God for what you have. 
And ask God to provide for them what they don't have.

Did You Think The Titanic Sank?

I didn't name it The Titanic Swim Team just to be cute.  I've been in a slump for some time,  some days feeling as though I'm barely keeping the ship afloat.  Other days the water may be up to my neck but I'm "Footloose" on deck.  I apologize for the drought.  If you're still on board I invite you to resume the sail with me.

This will be brief.  In one hour my wife and I leave for Honduras, to lead another team from our church to serve the poor.  Our goal is to build a house for a family living in and on the dirt.  We have 7 days to do it.  Over the course of a mere week of work we have the chance to make a difference that will last for generations in the life of this family.  Exciting!

Upon our return I will fill you in.  

Thanks for your patience and I hope to continue blogging with consistency.


p.s. sorry--no time for a photo

Open Heart, Open Hands : Counterintuitive in a World of Pain

“A glowing sun-orb fills an August sky the day this story begins, the day I am born, the day I begin to live.

And I fill my mother’s tearing ring of fire with my body emerging, vergin lungs searing with air of this earth and I enter the world like every person born enters the world:  with clenched fists.

From the diameter of her fullness, I empty her out—and she bleeds.  Vernix-creased and squalling.  I am held to the light.

Then they name me.

Could a name be any shorter?  Three letters without even the flourish of an “e.”  Ann, a trio of curves and lines.

It means “full of grace.”

I haven’t been.

What does it mean to live full of grace?  To live fully alive?

They wash my pasty skin and I breathe and I flail.. I flail.

For decades, a life, I continue to flail and strive and come up so seemingly. . . empty.  I haven’t lived up to my christening.

Maybe in those first few years my life slowly opened, curled like cupped hands, a receptacle open to the gifts God gives.  But of those years I have no memory.  They say memory jolts awake with trauma’s electricity.  That would be the year I turned four.  The year when blood pooled and my sister died and I, all of us, snapped shut to grace.

Standing at the side porch window, watching my parents’ stunned bending, I wonder if my mother had held me in those natal moments of naming like she held my sister in death.

In November light, I see my mother and father sitting on the back porch step rocking her swaddled body in their arms.  I press my face to the kitchen window, the cold glass, and watch them, watch their lips move, not with sleep prayers, but with pleas for waking, whole and miraculous.  It does not come.  The police do.  They fill out reports.  Blood seeps through that blanket bound.  I see that, too, even now.

. . .At the grave’s precipice, our feet scuff dirt, and chunks of the firmament fall away.  A clod of dirt hits the casket, shatters.  Shatters over my little sister with the white-blonde hair, the little sister who teased me and laughed, her milk-white cheeks dimpled right through with happiness. . . They lay her gravestone flat into the earth, a black granite slab engraved with no dates, only the five letters of her name.  Aimee.  It means “loved one.”  How she was.

We had loved her.  And with the laying of her gravestone, the closing up of her deathbed, so closed our lives.

Closed to any notion of grace.”                 (excerpt from One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp)

A few of us might be spared tragedy.  Some may never be utterly betrayed or violated.  Shattered dreams may not visit everyone’s waking hours.  But, as Marcus Borg states,  “None of us gets out of this alive.”  If pain, unspeakable ache, has not yet seared your soul, it likely will.

Such bewildering unfairness raises many “why” questions, and the answers escape us.  Of even greater importance than resolving the “why” questions is this:  How will I respond?

When tragedy strikes, will I respond with clenched fists –or—open hands?  When betrayal lacerates my heart, will that broken heart “snap shut to grace,” or in brokenness remain open to God and goodness? 

I have done both.  Regrettably, I have spent years with closed fists, angry at God, at life, for gut-goring tragedy in one season of my life, for a broken relationship that nearly buried me  in another season.

It seems my life has been a  painstakingly slow plodding toward opening my heart, my hands to receive grace, to express gratitude.

My closed heart and clenched fists were how I coped.  But it was no way to live.  To live a life of the closed fist is to always be looking back, rather than living in the present.  It’s a life of reaction; I want to live a life of response.  I’m tired of the backward look at the unfairness, the abuse, the tragedy, the plethora of grievances and spending the present moment reacting to it all.  I’m not suggesting there is no value in looking back; in fact, I think it’s an essential component of grieving and healing.  I need to visit the past, not live in it. If I’m always looking back at the past, I will miss living in the moment.

And there is grace and goodness now that I earnestly desire to savor.

May God give you and Amy Voskamp and me open hearts and hands to, in time, receive healing and wonder and joy.

Life: A Bipolar Experience

It's Labor Day and  the sun is shining. After temps endlessly in the 90's it is a mellow and mild 70.  The cicada sing to the waltz of the gentle breeze.   God is great and life is good.  


All it takes is one phone call to send us careening into chaos.  "Mr. Harris, this is the Peoria County Sheriff.  There has been a terrible car accident. . ."    "Steve?  This is Dr. Wahlberg's office.  We received the results of your tests.  Doctor wants to see you as soon as possible."  

 All it takes is one poor decision to plummet us to  the depths.  "Dad, I'm allowed one phone call.  I'm calling from jail. . . "   

 Life is filled with laughter so deep it hurts; life is replete with hurt so deep one doubts she'll ever laugh again.  It's still a mystery to me how to navigate such unpredictable waters.  One season I can be sailing carefree and not a care in the cosmos; the next season I'm  stranded in the middle of the ocean with no land or craft in sight, desperately clinging to a piece of shattered lumber, hoping to stay afloat.  


 The song of life can be so good that I lift my open hands in thanks and praise, and I have no sooner sung the chorus and a dirge begins and I'm shaking my angry fists at God.  


I know I am not alone.  Even the great saints and prophets of God have reported a similar experience.  Hear the heart of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah as he bursts into spontaneous joy.  "Sing to the Lord!  Give praise to God!  He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked."  And without skipping a beat he agonizes in lament, "Cursed be the day I was born!  May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!  Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad,saying, 'A child is born to you. . . !'"  (Jeremiah 20:13, 14)  

This unpredictability of life teaches me  to savor the joyful, the wonder, the beauty without demanding it or allowing those moments to define me.  Neither can I allow the hellish and horrific to dictate and determine my state of mind,my outlook.  There is One who transcends both the delightful and the decimating; there is One who is above and not circumscribed by the awe-full and the awful.  


I need eyes to see and ears to hear the One when there is so much vying for my attention, clamoring so loudly that often all I notice is the immediate, rather than the Ultimate.  

“Most of Us Can Read the Writing on the Wall; We Just Assume It's Addressed to Someone Else --Ivern Ball

Once there was a group of people who surveyed the resources of the world and said to each other, "How can we be sure that we have enough in hard times?  We want to survive whatever happens. Let us start collecting food and knowledge so that we are safe and secure when a crisis occurs."  So they started hoarding so much and so eagerly that other people protested and said:  "You have much more than you need, while we don't have enough to survive.  Give us part of your wealth!"  But the fearful hoarders said:  "No, no, we need to keep this in case of an emergency, in case things go bad for us, too, in case our lives are threatened."  But the others said:  "We are dying now; please give us food and materials and knowledge to survive.  We can't wait; we need it now."  Then the fearful hoarders became even more fearful, since they became afraid that the poor and hungry would attack them.  So they said to one another:  "Let us build walls around our wealth so that no stranger can take it from us."  They started erecting walls so high that they could not even see anymore whether there were enemies outside the walls or not!  As their fear increased they told each other:  "Our enemies have become so numerous that they may be able to tear down our walls.  Our walls are not strong enough to keep them away.  We need to put explosives and barbed wire on top of the walls so that nobody will dare to even come close gto us."  Now instead of feeling safe and secure behind their armed walls they found themselves trapped in the prison they had  built with their own fear."         --Henri Nouwen

A sobering story.  A story that mirrors much.  What do you see?

The Ego Makes Sure The Joke's On Me

The ego is --surprise!--egotistical.  It's all about me.  The ego, that selfish part of us, hates two things: exposure and change.


The ego will resort to any means to avoid being found out.  It will minimize--"It's not as though I robbed a dozen banks; it was just one."  It will rationalize--"I needed the money more than the bank did."  It will deny--"what bank?"  

It will do anything but tell or face the truth because that then would necessitate change.  We will cling to what's familiar even though it's killing us and we'll act like it's just another day in paradise.  "I'm in the dance band on the Titanic, singing Nearer My God to Thee."  The ego thrives on equilibrium; the current status quo may be as dysfunctional as a Big Brother episode, but it's predictable, though possibly lethal.  

Decades ago, I was a therapist in a rural county mental health clinic.  An adolescent male whom I'll call Sherwin Williams was a substance abuser.  Sherwin was into huffing spray paint.  One day he showed up for his appointment, walking into my office as nonchalant and ho-hum as could be.  He had a large circle of paint around his nose and mouth; walking in naked wouldn't have made him look any more conspicuous.  I asked him how he was doing.  "Fine."  I asked him if he had been huffing lately.   "Nope.  I'm clean." 


Are you kidding me?  How stupid do I look?  His ego was so entrenched in denial that what was obvious to anyone else was not even factored into the equation.  I still shake my head in disbelief when I think of Sherwin.  

But then there are those occasions when I look in the mirror--when I am honest with and about myself--and I can't believe it.  There's paint all over my face.  

Don't worry about me, though.   Like Sherwin, I'm fine.  I just need to stay away from mirrors. 

Am I Looking for the Infinite in the Finite?

I love to read.  I love to read from poets and mystics and theologians and  Franciscan monks and men and women who describe their pilgrimage.  Reading is the equivalent of eating.  I feast upon good books and deep thoughts and touching memoir. 


 I love to listen to music.  If I'm feeling lethargic, music can serve to energize me.  The Stones.   Springsteen.  Steve Winwood's, "You Gotta Roll With It, Baby."  Marshall Tucker's "Can't You See?"  Some music soothes and comforts my melancholy.  Van Morrison has made me cry.  Sarah McLachlan's mournful soul has caressed my own. 


I'm always looking for the next book to ground me, to anchor me in my journey.  I'm always listening to the next new artist, hoping that, maybe this time , the healing will come, the mood will stabilize, the epiphany will occur.    


I think I'm kidding myself.  I want to read, but I don't want to be read by the One who truly knows me.  I want to continue to expand my mind, hoping that through the vehicle of my mind I will eventually experience that "Aha!" revelation.  At other times I feel it is the heart that is the necessary mode of movement.  Maybe the next album will usher in a new lasting sense of peace and ease my anxious spirit. 


There's a part of me that knows better.  Yet, a part continues to pursue down paths that will not lead me to my desired destination.

Don't worry; I'm not about to engage in a frenzied book-burning extravaganza.  I'm not going to melt my cd's in a puddle, fueled by misguided repentance.    I'll keep reading, I'll keep listening.  Two questions arise.  Am I willing to be read?  Secondly, am I willing to listen to One who speaks in silence and solitude? 


Mick Jagger put it well:  I can't get no satisfaction. . . .and I try, and I try, and I try.