A Great Investment on Just Pennies A Day

A little over a year ago, our church’s Missions Committee offered a small way we can impact our community. They sponsored “piggy banks” for each Sunday School class asking for loose change offerings to benefit God’s Pantry.

This Lexington based organization distributes more than 15 million pounds of grocery products each year to Kentucky’s neediest population in the central and eastern portions of our state. They accomplish this task through a network of more than 350 non-profit grass roots agencies in 50 counties on the front line in our local fight against hunger. Through these partnerships they have been able to reach more than 159,000 individuals annually.

Most notably, our church has used the large blue tubs for direct contribution of non-perishable food products. This is still a valid and very visible way to give. Yet, because of the purchasing power when buying in bulk, the most economical way to make contributions has been financial. By using this method, God’s Pantry is able to purchase up to 10 times the value of a financial gift. That means every dime has the purchasing power of one dollar. For every dollar given, it is like ten dollars.

For the first six months of 2008, our loose change offering in Sunday School has been $742 translating to a real impact of $7,500 in food, all due to just a portion of the change previously taking up room in our pockets and purses on Sunday morning.

Jesus once fed over 5,000 with the meager offering of five loaves and a two fish (Matthew 14:15 ff). Soon afterwards, he fed 4,000 with seven loaves of bread and only a few small fish (Matthew 15:32 ff). Both times, the offering wasn’t much and both times its scrawny provision was unwisely judged by the disciples as insufficient.

We often are not generous because we feel some grand and sweeping gesture is necessary. But, if we wait and give until our name can be engraved on the side of the building, we probably will never get started. In God’s economy of responsible stewardship, we must give. It’s not an option, but an essential part of what it means to follow Christ.

Despite soaring gas prices, losing investments, mortgage scares and across the board cost increases in food and energy, we cannot be tempted away from our duty to give. In the hands of the masterful Creator, even chump change makes us champions. You don’t have to be a Wall Street guru for a high return. You just have to look (and give) in the right places.

Ice, Ice, maybe….

Alongside the summer pursuits of outdoor projects, back-yard barbecues and a really good book to read while sitting by a stream, lake or ocean – I have wondered about the fragility and tenuous nature of life.

I know it appears strange to sink into a melancholy of morbid thinking while the sun blasts away through the blue heavens with an unashamed invitation for everything to flourish and grow, but I can’t help it.

What I really can’t stop thinking about is the North Pole—predicted by many scientists to have a 50-50 chance of melting out by the end of this summer. That’s right – in two short months, the Arctic could be an “ice free” zone.

Already the spin machines are churning out rhetoric faster than snow cones are sold at a July picnic. “It’s symbolic,” says one observer, because “this is where Santa Claus lives.” Some see the benefits of resource development and value of opening up sea lanes far more accessible than previously allowed by the Northwest Passage.

William Chapman, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, calmly points out that the real concern is in the world’s total sea ice and watching what happens in Antarctica, where ice volume has actually increased over the past few years.

Still, my fears are not easily relieved. The disappearance of the Arctic forecasts a frightful tipping point. Without it, the world loses the albedo, or reflectivity, that helps bounce some of the sun’s rays back into space. As the Arctic shrinks, more of the sun’s energy is absorbed into open water, thus accelerating the warming (and melting) process.

I’m not a scientist, but it sounds about as smart as a bald man not wearing sunscreen or a ball cap when out on the beach. And that’s why I’m concerned.

Not because I’m bald, nor do I have cancer, but whose to say? I certainly wouldn’t flout any prudent measures that help maintain my health. Why, then, are so many hesitant to make serious efforts to at least consider the possibility of human-caused global warming?

If you were betting anything – like, let’s say, the long-term survival of the planet – wouldn’t it be a little wise to err on the safe side of the question? Conservation and “thinking green” may be initially costly and inconvenient, but can there be a better gift for the next generation than a world at least as beautiful as we inherited?

God is gracious, giving us little signs – a flashing yellow light, a discoloration of skin, a disappearing continental ice shelf – so when we ask what happened, we might hear, “Why weren’t you worried before?”

No Free Lunch

I’m sitting at my desk eating a free lunch and trying to catch up on the news from an international food summit currently taking place in Rome. It is being sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Pope Benedict told delegates that hunger and malnutrition are, “unacceptable in a world where resources and knowledge” can solve the crisis.

His admonition predicts a growing challenge. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is telling world leaders that production of food must grow by 50 percent by 2030.

The concerns of U.S. Secretary of the Agriculture Ed Schafer are more immediate. He says: “We are anticipating this year an over 40 percent increase in food price inflation globally, 43 percent approximately. Of that, we can identify 2 to 3 percent driven by biofuels. A majority, of course, is energy, and the second largest piece, or about equal piece, is the increase in consumption around the world, which is using up the production stocks.”

This pending development is an important corrective to our all-too-common complaints about growing gas prices. The impact of rising energy costs for most Americans is a mere inconvenience compared to what it means for the world’s poor, that being basic survival.

While Americans might become wiser and thriftier–slowing down, taking public transportation, walking and biking short distances and overall reducing our carbon footprint–others in the world cling to the razor-thin line between starvation and desperation, if not between life and death.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf opened the summit with an appeal to the world’s leaders for $30 billion to provide direct food aid to feed the world’s hungry and to address more permanent solutions like more seeds and fertilizer for poor farmers, fewer export bans and tariffs that restrict the flow of trade, and more research to improve crop yields.

Diouf points out that the world spent $ 1.2 trillion on arms while food wasted in a single country (I think he means us!) could cost $100 billion, and excess consumption by the world’s obese amounted to $20 billion.

“Against that backdrop, how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find 30 billion dollars a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus, the right to life?” Diouf said.

Considering how my decisions impact the world, I guess this wasn’t such a free lunch after all.

RIP RFK

From the Baltimore Sun:

Like many Latinos in Los Angeles in 1968, 17-year-old Juan Romero, a busboy at the Ambassador Hotel, admired Robert F. Kennedy. The night before the California primary, he had had delivered room service to Kennedy’s hotel suite, and had shaken the candidate’s hand.

“He shook my hand as hard as anyone had ever shaken it,” Juan told the Los Angeles Times’ Steve Lopez 35 years later. “I walked out of there 20 feet tall, thinking, ‘I’m not just a busboy, I’m a human being.’ He made me feel that way.”

Fatefully, on June 5 Romero again meets Kennedy. This time in the role of comforter, he cradles Kennedy’s head after being shot in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.

See more pictures here.

Any Way Beyond Verbal Shock-and-Awe?

Last week, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, found it necessary to “distance” himself from two ultra-conservative pastors: John Hagee of Texas and Rod Parsley of Ohio. Probably, you couldn’t find an American who has not heard of the similar troubles Sen. Barack Obama has had with his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

For a business often ridiculed as the best remedy to cure insomnia, it is remarkable how much attention these sermons and their preachers have received. But you have to wonder, at what costs? Like all professionals, ministers want to make a difference. They hope their words are memorable and the changes they encourage make a true difference.

Yet, in these cases, it is the virulent rhetoric of a fringe position that gathers the sought-after attention. While Revs. Hagee and Parsley sit on the far opposite side of Rev. Wright on nearly every issue, they all take extreme and polarizing positions. The very shock value that provides initial success becomes intolerable once introduced to the wider American populace.

Their messages became the victim of this cruel double sword: wildly popular and provocative because they were so political (and politically manipulated) and later discovered to be foolish because they were so extreme. At first glance, they underscore the vast relevancy of the preacher’s words to eventually and effectively prove their ultimate irrelevancy.

Meanwhile, the mainstream church drones on and on concerning the comparatively blander but truly more important priorities of reconciliation, responsibility, peacemaking, acceptance and unconditional love to dwindling congregations of heavy-eyed and patient listeners.

Striking this balance has never been more difficult. Our technologically savvy audiences have heard it all before, immersed not so much in the blood of the lamb as in the overly stimulated culture. Baffled, as any thinking and educated person would be, from the assault on faith that has characterized the last century of intellectual discourse.

What counts for legitimacy? What can awaken our slumber? Is it the hate speech of hypercritical attacks on those who are different? Is it a guilt-ridden condemnation on our moral smugness? Is there any other method possible beyond this verbal shock and awe?

What does the Lord require of you?

This poignant question and its answer, found in Micah 6:8, have stood the test of time for good reason. Micah, roughly a contemporary of the better-known Isaiah, was one of the last 8th-century (B.C.E.) prophets from southwest Judah. The great nation Assyria had captured Damascus and Samaria, and the beautiful capital city Jerusalem, established by King David some 300 years earlier, had been besieged in 701.

Times were hard. The powerful accepted brides from foreigners, the wealthy oppressed the underprivileged, and merchants cheated their customers. The insecurity and turmoil of the day prompted many Israelites to question the wisdom of following Yahweh. Why seek devotion to a God who allowed such abuses and uncertainty? Many reasoned it would be as sensible to request personal favors from other deities.

Micah’s prophetic vision was focused on two priorities: authentic devotion to the one true God and a defense of the powerless and poor who were being exploited. Acting like a prosecuting attorney, he convincingly uses his rhetorical style to argue against the defendant, Israel. The charge? They had forgotten the God who had rescued and helped them in the past. The witnesses are the whole creation: “mountains … hills” and “foundations of the earth” (v. 2). Their unfaithfulness is plainly obvious, even to dirt and rocks.

In response, Israel points to superficial sentiments of inflated spirituality. What if they gave extraordinary sacrifices from their prized possessions: repeated offerings of calves, rams, and oil? Or what if they were willing, like the Canaanites, to even sacrifice their own children? Surely that kind of devotion would convince God of their seriousness.

Micah says his client, God, is not convinced. The test of religion is not a public display of pious devotion. A spectacle of outward behavior devoid of authentic inward transformation will not suffice. You can’t buy God’s favor. A financial settlement will not erase the merits of this case against them.

So what will resolve this conflict? It’s simple, continues Micah – even affordable. While priceless, it is still costly, available to all, but taken seriously by few. It is God’s deep desire for all humanity, especially God’s own chosen children. What does the Lord require of you?

“Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” (v.8). That’s it. So basic it may appear easy, so powerful it eludes most of us.

Justice is concern for others as great as my concern for myself, especially those most in need (which often are those most unlike us). Kindness is hard to embrace when the world rewards the greedy and honors the flashy. We can’t simultaneously seek our personal success and self-promotion without first serious attention to God’s greater blessings.

In the span of 2-1/2 millennia, we find ourselves once again gathered over there, on the other side of the room, at the defense table. The world still spins just as out of control. The stakes are just as high.

Politicians have greater loyalty to merchants than the masses. With both hands in submission to the powerful, no available hand is ready for the poor. Energy security trumps any other security one might place in a transcendent Creator. The tasks are too many and the injustices are too large. We surrender and become victims of fear and worry – compliant pawns to be manipulated and devoured by the market gods of earthly power and influence – until a prophet as old as the hills shakes his bony finger at us and, in the process, points out the way to a greater freedom and a more lasting peace.

Sebelius for Vice President

Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius is my front runner for Vice President on the Obama ticket. While she is criticized for not being “flashy” enough for a national stage – I not only believe Ba-rock has enough star power for both, but really, when was charisma a prerequisite for V-P?

With Sebelius you have a popular governor who turned her state’s economy around without raising taxes. She is strong on education, health care and the environment. She has been married for 33 years and has two grown sons who grew up in the Topeka public school system.

Plus – given the purely symbolic nature of American politics – she will win over the needed “white women over 50″ vote and with the balance of looking experienced, youthful and attractive, she neutralizes McCain’s supposed maturity.

Yes, I know she is not from a “big state,” but it has voted “red” in the past and Governor Sebelius does have a record of connecting with Republicans.  I shutter to think what might happen if seniors in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California could be swayed by her.

Rounding out my “dream cabinet” are: Wesley Clark for Secretary of Defense, Bill Richardson for Secretary of State, Al Gore for Secretary of Energy, Jim Webb for Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, Chuck Hagel for Secretary for Homeland Security and are you ready for this?…..drum roll please……For Attorney General, one of the best litigators and fighters in the U.S. Senate – from New York, Sen. Hillary Clinton — how’s that for shaking things up?

Too Close To Home

When It Takes a Cyclone to Awaken Conscience

What is more mystifying – the things that occupy our attention or the things that should occupy our attention?

On May 3^rd, while Kentuckians invited the world to toast mint juleps, place bets, and cheer on horses running around a circle – half a globe away – the devastating aftermath from another cyclone was just beginning to emerge. The next morning, while polite Sunday school discussions were rightfully aghast at the untimely death of one talented thoroughbred, another far greater tragedy was unfolding.

Tuesday, we learned the numbers. Hitting the delta region of Burma in Southeast Asia, cyclone Nargis claimed 22,000 lives, with an additional 41,000 missing and perhaps as many as one million homeless. These staggering numbers are painfully reminiscent of December 26, 2004 when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing more than 225,000 in 11 countries.

But the situation in Burma (Myanmar) is more complicated. The country, under the control of rival military dictatorships since World War II, has traditionally resisted outside influence and cooperation. They are refusing help from the U.S. and most other countries and are not granting visas to aid volunteers.

The most likely reason is that they have something to hide. Some may recall last year when thousands of Buddhist priests and supporters took to the streets to protest dramatic and sudden increases in fuel costs leading to higher costs for staples such as rice and cooking oil. The clergy’s unified and courageous demonstration of solidarity with the plight of the poor was amazing, but seemed just a blip in the world’s ever-shortening attention span.

Obviously, more concern was needed. According to the Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2008 for Burma, this country has not only failed to provide the basic needs of its citizens, but in outlying areas – where you find greater ethnic diversity – abuses include: “forced labor, summary executions, sexual violence against women and girls, land confiscations, and the use of land mines to disrupt civilian food production.” These violations are maintained by a twiddling core of military personnel, leaving the government desperate to coerce, threaten and use physical force to recruit children as young as 10 years old to do their bidding for them.

In an eerie pairing of events, this Saturday, May 10, was to be a referendum on a new constitution for the people of Burma that the Human Rights News has called a “sham.” Like many political strategies, it was meant to appease but not substantively address the problems directed at the country.

Now – in the stillness that follows a storm – a desperate and horrific situation might provide some pressure for an authentic expression of humanity and an equally courageous determination to help “the least of these.” That is, before we all get interested in something else.

Faith Stories

Trespassers Will Be Baptized is the creative and whimsical title of a new book written by Elizabeth Emerson Hancock.

It is a memoir of her experiences growing up throughout Kentucky as a Baptist pastor’s daughter. One reviewer comments, “This is as close as you can get to Southern church life without eating your weight in Velveeta,” and another says, “Poetic and passionate writing combined with honest and unvarnished storytelling make this story of one girl’s struggle to understand life in the stained glass house a must read.”

It causes me to wonder what might be written by my own children, if at some point they decide to share their own stories. But it can’t be any different than the Bible. Our sacred scriptures are principally narratives. They have some theology and doctrine thrown in, but mostly they are interwoven into the greater fabric of plot, place, time and persons. They emerge out of the living experiences of real people struggling with their world and often with their God.

This is where we discover faith. Our spiritual selves do not merely exist in a system of theological abstraction, but in the touchy-feely community where we find ourselves full of blessings and bruises. We humans are frail and we are fantastic, capable of greatness and disappointment, wonder and utter stupidity. And throughout the ups and downs, there is grace; steady, consistent, and life-changing.

On a more somber note, another friend has a coworker with an eight year old son, named Garrett McMakin with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. They are seeking donations to fund innovative treatments for his condition. To learn more about Garrett’s needs and to offer a contribution, please click here.

These inter-weavings remind us of the importance of our children and their experience within our families– families of birth and blood and members of the larger family of Almighty God. Just remember – today you are creating a memory and someday, someone might decide to write it all down.