Introspection: Anger and Humility

Six kids and me acting like one around a bowl with a fish and a mirror.  One thing that the kids would do was to put a mirror in front of the Beta fish.  The Beta would become irritated, annoyed, frazzled and eventually angry.  It is angry at what it perceives as another.  In some ways its so difficult to watch the Beta fish.  

You wish to just tell it, “hey, that is you, stop being angry at the face thinking its another one. Your angry at yourself."  

For the fish to realize this….it would be awkward, awakening and agonizing.   Now hold onto this story.  I will come back to it. 

I have had a hard time describing my experience with church and faith.  Like I told my mom the other day, the key to read my blog is to “read” what is not written.  You may have noticed a void.  The void is the specifics about my actual church itself.  It’s a rather complex and, at times, difficult topic that is more suited to a conversation over tea.

One of the closest analogies I can come to about my experience with general life and church here is this. 

For those of you who know the East Hastings area of Vancouver, this will be at lot easier.  Basically, in downtown Vancouver you find posh, affluent life of the downtown.  Then you can walk a couple blocks and enter a world of poverty, drugs, and prostitution.  In a matter of blocks this happens.  It’s a shocking, scary and alarming walk—a walk that you rather forget--but really it is rather unforgettable.  

Now imagine, having a church right in between the posh part and the destitute part of Vancouver.  Say, a church in that block right before Hastings.  And this church draws people from both parts of Vancouver--the rich and the poor.  It has the very very richest people of Vancouver along with those whom are poorest.  They all gather in the same place for singing, hearing God's Word and fellowship. 

One of the choices of the rich looks like this.  You could come to church, do your thing, and leave or you could come to church and be changed and change both Hastings and your world.  The rich have made this church a massive building filled with the latest technology and finest furnishings. Going to church here could be the most comfortable thing ever.     

In this church, sitting next to the poor, against all assumptions that it would change the rich, shows little signs that it does.  The poor are expected to be there, it just the way things are.  Sure, some food and money is given to them.  In fact, some people far away are paying lots to help the poor here.  The poor mothers, stay poor, there is no way out for them.  In short, helping the poor is nothing more than an expected task of the church—it is just protocol.  Some people can not feed there kids well. 

Some people have no toilets.

Some people can not send there kids to school.  

But you can ignore this all, just show up in your SUV, hang out with your cliché, and then head home and live life behind your gated home or your strolling in the mall.  It actually is very possible for you to not be change even if you share the same pew or street with those whom hope to met life's needs, but struggle greatly to do so.  

There is of course another reaction to attending a church like this--suspended between the rich and poor.  The reaction is one of working towards empowering lives and seeing the call to bring justice as a central act of worship.  There are glimpses of this in certain people and at certain times, but as for the church community as a whole, this course of action seems to be the path much less taken.  

A then there is me.  Being apart of this church like I have this year, could also be something that—well, let’s see—wrecks and changes you.  It inflicts damage on your faith.  At times, you doubt the church.  You are troubled by the people that fill it with disregard for empowering the poor and lack of intentional interactions with  Muslims to know each other more deeply.  You lose trust in passionate sermons preaching shalom when the actions that follow are faint.  It looks to you like a race to the top of the economic ladder.  A flight to capitalism and all that it can bring.  It looks like a big jack-pot, some win and other lose—it’s the game.  There is no real way out for the losers, the winners work hard and it some sense have earned it—the losers just need to follow course.

Not a day goes by that I do not stare into this abyss between rich and poor and the abyss between God's Kingdom call and what happens.  Staring into tears me apart.  It’s ugly, lonely and damaging to the soul.  When the church looks like this it makes me not want to be a pastor.  Something is deeply not the way its supposed to be.  It is an awful sight. It can feel devoid of a God of compassion and intimacy.  The church feels like an institution, concerned with money and power.  

Now remember that story about the kids, me and the Beta fish.  Remember what the fish is actually angry at?

I think the part that hurts the most is how I have realized that the "face" that I get angry at, is actually me.  It's actually myself.  The names, attitudes, hearts, priorities, actions and words of those whom fill the church and make me want to leave it are, when it comes down do it, a lot like me.  It's an awful and awesome discovery all at the same time.  It's being angry and then realizing that the one you are angry at is actually your reflection. It's realizing that I am the Pharisee in in the Parable in Luke 18:9-14 who boasts and is angered by the tax collector, only to realize that the tax collector was a reflection of himself.       

It is one thing to go a place where all live relatively the same economically. 

         Live in the affluent part of your city, that makes faith easier.  

         Live in a place where poverty is ubiquitous, it will often make faith harder.

But,

        Live in a place where affluence and poverty tangle, it makes you angry, then introspective.  

Like the Pharisee, I also find the path to humbly look introspectively at the "face" that is the end of pride and condemnation one of struggle and denial.  Denial that at the end of my frustration is really myself.  Faith is humility.  Faith then becomes anguish.  I am moving past denial and trying to bear the cross of humility in terms of my experience in Indonesia.  It is process.  And it is slow.  But Jesus has me convinced that it is worth it.   

Missions as "one beggar telling another beggar..."

One beggar telling another beggar where to find food.
Have you ever thought of that as describing missions or evangelism or interfaith dialogue?


Probably not.  I never did.
But now I do a little bit more.
Here is why? 


Before coming to Indonesia, I had never meaningfully meet and conversed with a Muslim. How that has changed!


One such occasion was earlier this month when I had the honor of joining an interfaith dialogue.  An interfaith dialogue is basically where 2 or more religious groups come and understand what makes each other "tick".  By understanding each so much happens.  Stereotypes end. Common ground is found. Friendships are formed.  Action on poverty and peace is taken together.


This time around, dialoguing with a group of  Muslims took a different direction.  The place that this dialogue ended up is not the goal of dialogue, neither is it a common occurrence.  But it can happen when the Spirit moves and doors are opened.      


The group that I, along with some others, engaged with, was not your ordinary group of Muslims.  They were ordinary Muslims in the sense that they were caring and warm people.  But they were not ordinary in what they believed and in how they practiced it.


They described themselves as "followers of Isa."  Isa is the Arabic word for Jesus.  They no longer attend a mosque, nor do the Muslim daily prayers.  Rather they gather on Friday night for worship.  


They believe that Jesus as God and Savior.  However, they do not know about the crucifixion and resurrection.  


They only read the Koran and the Jesus they depict is entirely from the Koran.  They have not read the Bible, but claim that the Jesus of the Bible and the Koran are the same--so there is no need to read the Bible.  


Why are they doing this?


1. Most likely they would become followers of the Biblical Jesus and go to church if it was not for the alienation that they would experience from their community if they did this.  There is a huge gap between a mosque/muslim culture and the church.  There needs to be a gap in belief and some practice, but the gap between the is often unnecessarily large. I really do not blame them for not wanting to join church in Indonesia, its forms of worship are just so different than a Muslim's forms of worship.  The Gospel is concerned about content and meaning, not the forms of worship.   


2. Every person, culture and religion have some of Light's shining in them, none of them are complete darkness.  God's Light shines everywhere on earth, nothing is left untouched by it. This is the same for the Koran.  I have learned so much from Muslims about this, especially this group I meet with recently.  There is so much to talk about with Muslims because there is so much in common with Christians.


Take this for example, Muslims and Christians share the Torah.  Both Muslims and Christians therefore agree on two central things:  "Love God" and "love your neighbor."  A few years ago over 100 muslims leaders wrote this to you and me.


They wrote this to us "rather than engaging in polemic, the signatories [ global muslim leaders] have adopted the traditional and mainstream Islamic position of respecting the Christian scripture and calling Christians to be more, not less, faithful to it."  That is amazing!


Signs abound within the Koran that provoke questions to which the Gospel is the answer.  
What the Muslims I met taught me was this:
I do not posses the Truth.  I can never claim that.  


What I can claim is to know where the Truth is.  I can point to Jesus and say "there."  


Muslims do not point to Jesus and say "there", that is Truth.  They point to a book and say "there", that is Truth.  But their book, the Koran, gives clues that Jesus is Lord and could lead a Muslim to embrace Jesus as Truth, at which they would deny the Koran as the Truth.  


The Muslims taught me the Truth that is shown in God's Light or His Presence shining in and through the world is beyond something I will every understand fully.  Beyond something that I can posses.  Beyond something I can claim.  


Rather I am pointed by my Muslims friends to find God's Light shining in all the world.  Not limited to one religion, or a certain people.  


It is like a am a beggar alongside my Muslim friends who are beggars, and we are telling each other where to find food.  
Therefore, I have learned that evangelism, missions and interfaith dialogue, done right, is as much witness as it is discovery.  


As I discovered that God was revealing himself to these Muslims and pointing them towards Jesus, I along with a few other Christians were also able to witness by pointing to Jesus. 
I have a video of that. 


I took a video of a prayer and then the Bibles that we offered this group.  Please remember while watching this that this is not a "day in the life of Jason", neither is the way we are going about it imposing or coercive.  Rather the hours that preceded this footage were respectful discovery and witness for both the Muslims and Christians.  The man who is praying is David Shenk an author, professor and practitioner of interfaith dialogue that was visiting Indonesia.

And a picture for those still using dial-up internet.  This picture is with a number of Muslims we meet along with some of the Christians.

What a peculiar sight!

Pedaling her vintage rusty red bicycle she eyes looked ahead down the street, the street she bikes to and fro every day.  She biked ahead of me, sometimes beside me, but never behind me.  I didn’t know where I was going, what I was doing or how I was going to get there.  This was once again, like every day here, an invitation to open my clenched fist—clenching control. This was another invitation to release—to relinquish.

I always wonder what a peculiar sight this must be for others.  I, a white North American Christian biking along a busy commuter route 5 kilometers to a village.  Beside me, Ibu Supri, who works making cigarettes at one of the many prolific cigarette factories here.  It is the type of job that makes a couple dollars a day.  Her husband passed away a few years ago in a vehicle accident.  She has a daughter, Eva, who is 10 years old.  Unlike most Indonesian’s, she doesn’t have a motorbike, so she bikes everywhere including back and forth to school, work and the mosque with here daughter.  

We enter the village and stop by for something to eat at a “restaurant”.  She orders cooked vegetables with rice.  I order chicken with rice.  Often for me, eating the food in villages and those whom are materially poor is not easy.   This “restaurant” was no different.  While eating my chicken, a cat jumped off the dirt floor, hopped up onto the counter and starting snacking on the food in the frying pan, which was in the kitchen.  Many things do not faze me any more. An ant in my orange juice is normal and sand in my rice is to be expected.  But this—yes—it fazed me all right!  However, I calmly mentioned to the cook, “hey, there is a cat eating there.”  To which the cook, glanced over and waved her hand at the cat. The cat left and the women did nothing to the frying pan.  The chicken became a little harder to get down after that!

We paid for the food.  Well, Ibu Supri paid for both of us.  But wait, why didn’t I pay?  I could have at least paid for myself, and surely for her as well.  Isn’t that what we always do when we are among the poor?  Whether it is in the inner city ministry or in our support for relief and development around the world, we give and they, the poor, receive.  They are the recipients of our love. But how often are you the recipient of the love of the poor? 

By her choosing where we would eat and allowing her to pay for me, she was able to enact her dignity.  A relationship between the “white rich guy” and the “poor”, so often described as “superior” was overturned to allow the blossoming of her dignity.  Although the poor paying for my food has happened so many times already, there is still something uncomfortable about it.  A discomfort because losing my control and superiority in the lives of the poor means that my fear of what may happen not just physically, but spiritually to myself is unknown.  As Henri Nouwen writes, “when you dare to let go and surrender one of those many fears, your hand relaxes and your palms spread out in a gesture of receiving.”  Only then, am I able to receive love.

To open my arms in a gesture of receiving it requires that I confess that I am limited, dependent and sinful—that my attempts to love the poor sometimes snuff out their humanity. And those actions themselves also hurt me.  As Nouwen put it “a person only becomes a person when he is capable of standing open to all the gifts which are prepared for him.”  When I play god in the lives of the poor—that becomes my poverty—a far more stubborn poverty than those who are materially poor. I remember Luke 21 when Jesus said “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”  My poverty was exposed, and her riches shone, when I accepted the gift of Ibu Supri—her presence, food, her decision making.  For “when someone accepts a gift, he admits another one into his world and is ready to give him a place in his own being.” It gets uncomfortable.

Ibu Supri and I continued to her home.  It was one of the most basic homes I have seen—the floor was dirt.  We sat with some neighbors, talk for a while.  And then like most conversations I have here, conversation topics run out and there is silence.  In this case, I was silent while others spoke.  The discomfort that I often feel vanished among the palm trees swaying in the wind and ducks waddling around.  Somewhere in some village in Central Java, I was still. 

“The promise of silence is that new life can be born. It is this silence, which is the silence of peace and prayer, because you are brought back to the other who is leading you.  In this silence you lose the feeling of being compulsive and you find yourself a person who can be himself along with other things and other people. Then you realize that you can do many things, but it isn’t necessary.  It is the silence of the “poor in spirit”, when you learn to see your life in its proper perspectives.”  (Nouwen)

For me, that perspective that is formed is staggering and beautiful.  It is that,  

“the corporate nature of the salvation that God purposes is necessary part of the divine purpose of salvation according to the biblical view that no one could receive it as a direct revelation from above, but only through the neighbor opening, only as part of an action in which one open’s door and invites one’s neighbor to come on in.” Therefore, “I am never permitted to think of my own salvation apart from that of God’s whole family and God’s whole world.” (Newbigin)

This has changed the way I live.  I don’t quite fully understand it.  I never will.  But moments where I am sitting with Ibu Supri, I begin to understand it a little bit more.

That to release my clenched fist means to relinquish power and pride.

That to receive with my palms open means that I am the bruised and naked man, not the Good Samaritan.   

That to accept with my arms wide open means that I realize that I need the ‘other’—for without them I am not whole.

When my hands release, palms open and arms accept Ibu Supri, I am reminded of the cross.  Where Jesus had his palms open and arms out knowing that I could not love like that.  What a peculiar sight.   

That enables me to be able to release my fist, open my palms and spread my arms wide open so that peculiar sights like Ibu Supri biking along side happen more often.  It seems that it is a way of life.  And when I live life releasing, receiving and accepting, then it seems a lot like praying.  And then I suspect that to pray is to live.

A March Montage

A few days ago the 2/3 mark of my time away from home occurred amid a week of mixed emotions.  On Sunday, a bored and frustrated Jason missed home--the family and the friends.  However, the rest of the week was awesome!  I love this place, and I am continuing to learn to love it more, however, once in a while there are hiccups.  I've been gone a lot from my host church and home for the past 1.5 months, so I look forward to being more settled in the coming month.

The average day means I spend some time at my office with my pastor Pak Nindyo, who is also my best friend.  We talk a bit and laugh a lot.  I write a fair bit, especially with 3 university papers to write this month and then we often eat together.  Nearly ever day I visit someone's home--either the neighbor kids, or someone in the Compassion child sponsorship at my church.  There are church events sprinkled through out the week nights and if there is not an event I often hang-out with the young adults.  Rarely a day goes by without some sort of unique event, like today I went with a pastor from Burma and visited a branch church.  

Speaking of things routine and unique, here is a look at both.      

Buddhist people are some of the most fluid and open people I have met in terms of sharing and acceptance of other faiths.  This picture says it all.  In Buddhist temples in Indonesia, often Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are worshipped in the same place along side each other.

Besides watching me surfing, er trying to surf, looking at a cow's 3rd stomach lining is possibly the coolest thing to look at it. 

I had the privilege to join a neighborhood in Solo (the city I visited for a week) launching their declaration of peace, in a community with a conflicted past.  You will also notice the word "declarasi" in the background. Often in Indonesian, you can just drop the "tion" of an english word and replace it with "i".  Bam.....your Indonesian vocab just skyrocketed. 

I visited a community of Muslims, no they were Christians.  Or wait, followers of Jesus or maybe it was followers of Isa.  Wait, which one was it?  I visited a community that follows Isa (Arabic for Jesus) who believed Jesus as their Savior.  Nothing was fitting into those nice neat boxes I have created in life.  Like, what is salvation and who is Jesus?  In this photo, I am reading a verse from the Koran trying to figure to understand where these people fit on the map I have created about religion/grace/salvation.  I know that my map was not big enough, or gracious enough.  I will return soon to join for Saturday morning worship in hopes that know God and His people better.

I went to visit a base camp for a radical Islamic group with a pastor.  Posters saying they were ready for war and the guns lying around on the self made me realize that I was doing no ordinary "bridge building".  A part of it was a TV station.  They wanted me to say a greeting for their channel.  In a moment of slight excitement and sheer anxiety, I agreed to a 10 second clip.  Just imagine you’re an Indonesian and a guy with blonde curly hair suddenly introduces your daily news.  All that went through my head while reciting the lines was “is this the kind of thing that gets you home earlier than you want to?”  Never imagined building that kind of bridge! 

In Canada, I usually have the problem where halfway through a buffet food starts falling off my plate.  In Indonesia, I walk through the buffet, realize that I still have rice on my plate and then have to walk through again.

  On MCC retreat, being the naive beach goer that I am, I was thrilled that monkeys wanted to come over and hang out with me.  Growing up watching animal shows where the host would sit around on the Savannah with baboons and cheetahs, I thought that I met my childhood dream on this beach.  That got turned up side down when a wieldy monkey climbed the tree next to me and lunged.  At me.  Unprovoked.  However, my reflexes, a strong suit of mine, kicked in and I flung the monkey off of my water bottle.  Feeling self-esteem for the the way I showed the monkey who is boss and feeling that my childhood dream failed in my first close encounter with a monkey made me dash into the ocean, which was full of coral.  Which hurt.   

The most stunning terrace farming I have seen so far.  There are no homes on this slope except for the very bottom.  So imagine that stroll to work? 

Dazzling.

IKEA's home delivery takes terribly long, has higher incidences of shipping damage but is awfully eco-friendly.  

I asked for a coconut, so someone went to fetch one.  No ropes.  Just a man and a machete. And then I drank it like this....

Haha....

I joined some kids to go plant trees for earth day.  But in great irony we were so tired planting trees in the heat that we all drank water.  From small one-use plastic cups.  Which we disposed anywhere we felt like.  Which will be gathered to be burned.  Which means we may have been carbon-neutral that day. 

A Muslim cemetery with a big awesome tree.

There is something I love about this photo. (credited to an MCC service worker)  

A volcano.

We drank Sprite and Coke.  We sat on a mat.  We talked about politics.  We talked about Christians, Buddhists, Muslims.  We talked about corruption, gambling and alcohol.  We talked about peace.  The man on the right is from India and is a service worker for MCC and stayed with him for a week.  The man in the middle is a carpenter.  He is also the leader of a radical islamic group.  

Transformation

Remember those pictures I posted where I was speckled in mud, where I was "farming".  This a story from my time there.    

I presented this story at the MCC retreat and since not all of you could be there, I thought I would post it.  It's long. It's about transformation--in me and in others.    

Have you ever met someone who is—well, the only word you can think of is—is down-right charming.  Someone with that smile that could lift any bad day out of its pits.  Someone who can always give an enthusiastic “Sukun Dalu” (Javanesse for “good evening”).  Someone who is always ready a laugh over that smallest joke, especially when you know it doesn’t deserve a laugh.  People you remember and cherish the time you spent with them.  People that you rather not leave. 

I met someone just like this.  His name was fittingly, Pak Selamat!  Something else about these type of charming people, is that I never imagine them driving an Indonesian bus, a school bus yes, but Indonesian communter bus…I don’t think so—but he does—everyday from Kudus to Jepara.

But I did not meet him on the bus, rather I met him while I was in the terrific village of Kali Rejo, 30 minutes outside of Kudus.  He is a faithful member of the church.  On his evenings, I would meet him around the church.  Always with that goofy massive smile on his face.  Always ready to laugh and to make a normal “Selamat malam” and Apa Kabar?” into a joke.  But when your name is Pak Selamat, there are a lot of jokes you can do. 

He was one person amongst, a community where I was transformed.  But there is a further transformation that is highlighted within him, which is representative of the church communities transformation. 

I know that I am transformed being in Indonesia, and more specifically that community transformed me.  I am aware of how much receiving the Kingdom has changed me.  I find this easier than knowing how I am an ambassador for bringing forward God’s Kingdom here.  I know it happens.  Sometimes you hear after people doing mission trips.  “wow, you were such a blessing to them, you guys are doing amazing work.”  I usually do not feel that way, and neither do I think that is a problem—rather, a good sign that Indonesians are blessing me and that God is doing the work.

Ever once in a while, I notice how God uses my presence in all its cultural linguistic weakness, to move human life toward His Kingdom as it is in heaven.  Mostly, this Kingdom cause that God has called me to goes on without my knowledge and ability to point and say “there.”  When I visit people, I want that to be a kingdom visit—but really, what transformation is taking place—is for the Spirit to know and maybe one day reveal.  But this visit to Pak Selamat’s home was a kingdom visit where I can say “there” –transformation happened, or better-said transformation is traced within a conversation.  I’ll explain.

The church in Kali Rejo has a long history, 40 years.  The founders of the church were former Communists, that converted after the September Movement in 1965.  The church was formed in 1973, and it membership grew to 200 members within 10 years—amazing.  Within a few more years, membership nose-dived to 100 members.  Today, there are 125 members.  But why this drastic membership fluctuation?  In the 70’s and 80’s, GKMI Kudus gave a lot of stuff to the people of the village……therefore, lots of people joined the church.  When the taps on the rice where mostly turned off, people became turned off of church.  Some people call this, “rice Christians.”  This dependency, wrong use of diakonia and troublesome relationship between the city and the village has not only left its mark on the church, but the larger community.  This is how they tell their history.  This is the church of Pak Selamat.

Back to visiting Pak Selamat’s home where a transformational conversation took place.  After declining the boiled blood patties offered by his wife, a boiled blood patty chef, we talked about….well, what I always talk about.  Fav food.  Siblings.  Canada. Javanese ability, or lack of. Relationship status.  Then the conversation turned towards his son, Thomas.  Thomas wasn’t there at the time, but I met him later on and he also carries the same kind of charm of his father. 

Thomas is one of the children in the church’s child sponsorship program, where North Americans sponsor children.  I realize that some of us here are involved with child sponsorship in some form….so I respect that.  However, I don’t support this type of development/poverty work and see other methods as better ways of enacting Kingdom transformation.

We talked at length about the child sponsorship program…the letters received from N.A., the way that funding works and what changes between elementary and high school for a sponsored child.  Then I mentally realized, “oh no, what if they ask me if I will sponsor a child?”

“To give an honest answer or not”……is what I thought.  And this must be how God talks because 10 seconds later the question was asked by Pak Selamat.  “So will you sponsor and child and tell people in Canada to sponsor a child?”

Thinking, “well here goes this conversation and the hopes and expectations they have in me.” “umm…maybe.”  “well, probably not”

It’s a moment where you are waiting for a reaction, sending a prayer that God’s directs this conversation into a constructive and beautiful thing. 

Before despair set in, I spoke up.

 “You know your saweh (a rice paddy).  That is awesome.  You guys bought the land, plant rice, onions and watermelons and then sell it in the market.  Then the money from the sales goes towards the church—including diaconal tasks.”

The response was “yes, yes, your right.”

I kept going, “You have skills, talents and abilities which you can use.  Some of you are farmers, others of you are cooks. Within your church you are capable of helping each other. “

They kept nodding their heads.

“You do not need the money from people in North America.  You don’t even need the money from GKMI Kudus.  Doing the saweh is a better way to deal with poverty.”

And in a response that sums up the transformation mapped out in this conversation that is an echo of a slow but sure transformation in the church, an eruption of excitement occurred.  They were proud.  They owned their Kingdom story, not someone else.  That is a big transformation in the history of that church. Or in the words of the pastor, this is “radical change.” 

And it is this experience that transformed me.

First, through their community life in the village.  I recently wrote while reflecting on that expierence, “In many ways, these Indonesians live better than me, for they understand more fully what it is to live in a community of love and care—I aspire to this.”

Secondly, through hope.  The methods and attention that poverty and the church’s call to diakonia sometimes “wears” in my church experience in Indonesia.  That experience has had a completely unexpected effect on me.  It has lit a passionate fire underneath for the very stuff that Pak Selamat and the church in Kali Rejo are doing out there in the saweh.  Well, no, not referring to a farming life for me…but referring to the empowering way the church is answering its call to be the Kingdom community.  I just love it.

Reflecting on this I wrote: “I am learning to live between the long awaited fullness of the Kingdom and the present reality where we are a messed up bunch trying to be the Kingdom community. I am called into that Kingdom community not to despair, but as a privilege to enact the life of the very one whom fulfilled expectations—once and for all.”

It is through the unexpectness of the Kingdom, the up-side down world, where I met an Indonesian bus driver who, together with his church, is salt and light.  It’s his smile.  It’s his charm that hints to something that is beyond himself or of his community—that of God’s Kingdom at work.  I ended that memorable conversation, mutually transformed, with the words from Pak Selamat who emphatically said, “Go tell people in Kudus and Canada about this!!  They need to know!”

And now I have told you the story. 

Put the cellphone down, talk less, and listen up

Last week, someone told me:

"Jason, the world needs people that can sit down and listen.  That can sit down and talk.  The world needs people that can care intentionally for each other.  We need to create space for each other without distractions like cellphones."  I then sat down and listened to this man speak to me about his faith and the church for a few hours.

In the same week, I heard about "Coffee for Peace."  A place in the island of Mindanao, Philippines where Muslims and Christians could put down arms and sit down and listen.  This happened at the MCC Asia Diakonia Conference where 8 Asian countries and their Anabaptist church leaders came together.  Their was lots and talking and listening among each other.  Rather than talking, I listen a lot.....although I had plenty to say, I listened.

Then there is my "job" with the church.  I listen a lot.  I listen a lot with little understanding during worship services.  I listen a lot with little understanding during the pastor's meeting.  I listen a lot with little understanding on young adult road trips.  There is no other way around that.  And that is fine.  It teaches you.  It teaches you how to care, to be humble and to hear God's voice.  I've learned that listening, being still, and just sitting with people, is the business of pastoral care.  

That is where I have found my groove here.  

It's the best witness I have. 

I could preach sermons, but there is already a dozen pastors that are doing that. 

I could attend more meetings, but there is already enough people at those. 

But preaching, more meetings and more time in the office, well.....that doesn't make me come alive and that is not what the people of Kudus need more of.  I come alive sitting still on the floor sharing stories and sharing a meal.  The world needs people that can do that.  That is Jesus' life.  That was and still is His ministry.  That is the life I strive to imitate, it is the ministry I embrace  

So as a wise man said earlier this week: put the cellphone down, talk less and listen up.    

"Jason's Rice Paddy services, how can I help you?"

Here is mental image for you: 

Last week, this tall lanky kid ran around a rice paddy.  He thought that he deep deep down had an inner “farm boy.”  But he was terrible at digging in the mud and any step he made into the mud the situation looked….ummm….precarious.  At one point he was tilling the earth with a hoe while wearing a traditional rice-farming hat.  It lasted only minutes before the kid found it rather fun to get his arms muddy up to his armpits.  While playing in the mud, a crab was found. 

 The kid was elated.  He played with it, trying to get it to pick things up with his “snappers”.  Then suddenly, more were found.  The kid became an act of comedy to the farmers.  The farmers became to throw crabs towards the kid.  Sometimes, the crabs would not land close to the bucket, so the kid had to go out into the rice paddy uncover the crab and then attempt to jostle the crab until its “pincers” were closed.  This usually was a fail.  Instead, the kid juggled the crab back to the bucket were its friends awaited.  This method was largely effective, although some bite marks from a wieldy crab still exist.  Eventually 5 crabs were together—he thought—a perfect family.  In fact, the kid cared for these crabs like his children.    

                   To the complete shock of the kid, one crab decided to violently amputate another crab.  The terrified kid watched three limbs dismember. The dismembered crab died within a period of 20 minutes while the kid baby-sat the others, keeping discipline. In the end, 20 crabs were tossed from farmers to the kid.  Many crabs tried to escape their new parenthood. The crabs became unruly together, using a teamwork strategy to pile on top of each other to make an escape.  These beloved crabs, were too much of a commitment for the kid.

Breakfast the next morning was crab. 

The talk of the village was the kid. 

A this was a day in a life.

If you want to get aquatinted, read the above story.

Hacking....wait that's not the right word.  Okay, "Hoeing" the the church's plot of land.  This lasted a few minutes and then.......

My hoe was confiscated by the farmers.So I used my hands......which lasted until I......

Realized I have very little agricultural skills.  Nothing spells "foreigner" like the contrast between the muddy farmer behind me and the specks of mud on my face.

I trusty farmer risked a lot and allowed me to drive his rice paddy tilling tractor.  A crowd watched, and nearby farmers guarded their paddies as I had the time of my life driving around a rice paddy chasing snakes.  I got raves reviews for my work.  So if some other career plans fall through, I have a new option to fall back on.