Waving or Drowning?

Prepare Ye The Way

Riding the bus on the way home from school this afternoon I was reminded of something that happened early last week.

I took the bus downtown to The Great Room open house last Monday. Walking to the building I saw drug dealers, drug addicts, prostitutes and the homeless, all in the 200 yards between the bus stop and the front door. Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks, as I became aware of what was playing on my iPod.

Prepare Ye the Way
by Caedmon's Call

The Word of the Lord came one evening
Concerning His bride's great sin
He'd send down His Word to renew her
To prepare for the Bridegroom again

The Word said repent
From seeking vain glories
While the gifts in the Lord's name you give
Repent of all the first stones cast to kill
While your own self-righteousness lives

Prepare ye the way for the Lord
Prepare ye the way for the kingdom
Prepare ye the way
Prepare ye the way for the Lord

The Word said repent and turn from your strivings
Repent and turn from your hatred
Repent from the doctrines of men that divide
And tear like the wedding gown ripped

Walk in His love like newborn children
Walk in His love, let the wedding gown mend
Walk in His love, with humility come with pure hearts
And cast all your cares to the wind

Prepare ye the way for the Lord
Prepare ye the way for the kingdom
Prepare ye the way
Prepare ye the way for the Lord

The Word of the Lord came one evening
Concerning His bride's sin
He assured me we will be forgiven
And then let the marriage begin

Prepare ye the way for the Lord
Prepare ye the way for the kingdom
Prepare ye the way
Prepare ye the way for the Lord

That this song is significant for me shouldn't come as any surprise to those of you who have heard me prattle on about some of my theological views. I believe the gospel of Christ included a call for us to live the way Jesus prescribed, and thereby participate in the redemption of the world. That's the good news... no pun intended. I also believe this participation is not an option, but a requirement. I also believe Jesus has all the time in the world. I wonder when we'll get started.

Prepare ye the way, indeed.

One Perspective From Onboard the 210 Bus

The walls of that box you're existing in are paper-thin. This discovery will be liberating for some... and terrifying for others.

Values

From Jim Wallis' blog, emphasis mine:

Brian McLaren: Three Values For Voters to Consider

We've asked other members of the God's Politics Blog team to respond to the question that Jim Wallis and Ralph Reed debated last week: "What should values voters value most?"

This is a really worthwhile question - just to have dialogue about it is so much healthier than submitting to the monologue of a one- or two- issue program.

For me, a whole constellation of issues coalesce around three values that I find rooted in Scripture and especially the teachings of Jesus. First, issues that relate to God´s world - we are given to the earth as caretakers and stewards, and we depend on the earth for our survival, so this relationship is essential. This means that we must intervene when human beings through greed or ignorance damage the earth.

Second, issues relating to justice, especially for the poor. The gap between rich and poor in our world is growing at an alarming rate, and it´s easy to imagine a lot of nightmare scenarios resulting. So we need to narrow this gap and improve the lives of the billions who are living in desperate need while others live in extreme luxury.

Third, issues relating to war. The growth of religious, ethnic, political, and racial hatred contradicts and conflicts with the message of Jesus, which is a call to reconciliation with God and neighbor and enemy.

The most important issues, it seems to me, center in these three values.

Beyond the political considerations, we could spend the rest of our lives working out these issues as we seek to follow Jesus.

A Missing Friend (UPDATED), or...

...Life in The Downtown Eastside.

I'm attaching the text of an email Sue and I received last night from a friend of ours who works in the DTES. Even though its a request for help and included a photo, I'm going to remove the identifiers; you can still pray for her and her family. This email is very sad, but not unusual.

This is life for a lot of people.

Hi Everybody:

A friend of mine went to work on Saturday and never came home. Her name is "X". She is someone who has a history of drug addiction and used to have 3 years clean. She this summer though did get loaded for a while and had gotten clean yet again. Her family would like to get any information if possible. They don't even know where to start looking. They filed a missing persons report today. They are distraught. She has 5 kids that miss her as well and need her well. The family is concerned that she might actually have been taken by her previous husband who was connected to the Hells Angels. Or if she did some bad drugs and died. She left without taking any clothes and so would be in her work clothes which is very unlike her. None the less they are worried and would like to receive any tips from sightings. So I am sending this picture out to anyone I have an email for that lives in the Vancouver area. If you do see her could you let us know where you saw her and what the people looked like that she might be with. If you do talk to her please tell her to call "Y" so he knows she is still alive. Or she can leave a note at Harbourlight for any of her friends from Homestead. I thank you for you help. And please keep her and her family in your prayers.

Damn, but there are far too many of these stories...

UPDATE: The Missing Friend is now home, and must start the climb out of addiction over again. It seems to me that this is a microcosm of what life is like for so many of the "overlooked and ignored." And just in case this world is foreign to you, or you missed it, this is a very good outcome when one considers the possibilities. This is an outcome that the Missing Friend and her friends and family can work with.

The Saints Are Coming II (Updated)

For all those folks who ended up here after googling The Saints Are Coming, looking for more on the cover of The Skids original by U2 and Green Day (including a big spike during Monday Night Football tonight)... welcome.

I couldn't find much either, but I did track down this video on You Tube. Also, I heard from Michael Myers today who informed us via comment about his web site where you can find a better quality version of his Abbey Road video. Make sure you also visit Music Rising during your travels.

UPDATE: Beth has turned us on to the video of the Monday Night Football performance here.

Djiribah, and In View

I've been grooving to 2 tunes in particular today while avoiding my Greek vocabulary work (or, "that effing Greek", as its becoming known by around here.)

The first one I picked up from the Soundroots blog:

Today's song is about fruit. Mamadou Diabate is a Mali-born, US-based kora player familiar to world music fans. His upcoming album Heritage features his instrumental group, which includes Guinean guitarist Mory Kante, balafon player Balla Kouyate, percussionist Baye Kouyate, and bassist Noah Jarrett. Diabate acknowledges a musical growth achieved by living in the US and playing with jazz musicians:

Playing jazz has developed my techincal skill and my improvisations. If I go too far, I lose the character of Mande music. But in jazz, I am free and that has changed me. In Mali I would not have these experiences. Living in the United States has made me a better musician.

But back to the harvest. "Djiribah" is a pentatonic tune that talks about "the big tree," which provides delicious fruit to the people. Elders are compared to that tree, for when they leave, it is a sad day for the people.

[mp3] Mamadou Diabate: "Djirbah"
from the forthcoming album Heritage (World Village, 2006)
Diabate's website
Diabate's previous solo kora CD is Behmanka (World Village, 2005)

The second couldn't be more different. The Tragically Hip have a new album coming out, and In View is the advance single. These guys just keep reinventing themselves, and I love it.

If/Then

From the Sojo Voice of the Day:

When Christian leaders go to government to call for sweeping structural change, we have more integrity and power when we can say: "We are part of Christian communities that are already beginning to live out what we are calling you to legislate." Our call for costly changes in foreign policy toward the Two-Thirds World designed to implement greater global economic justice has integrity only if we are a part of Christian congregations that are already beginning to incarnate a more simple lifestyle that points toward a more just, ecologically sustainable planet. Our call for nuclear disarmament and international peace has integrity only if there is growing peace and wholeness in our families and churches.
- Ronald J. Sider

Happy Birthday, Dad

On Monday my father, Dave Todd, will turn 75 years old.  (I’m posting this today because family and friends are gathering back in Ontario to celebrate with him. Sue and I can’t be there, so this is our little contribution to the festivities.)

Three-quarters of a century… I can’t believe it.  You’d have to know my dad to understand the significance of that statement. You see he’s very excited about what comes next, and has always said that he didn’t want to hang around here for too long. As a young man he said, apparently, that he didn’t want to live past 50. Then it was 60. And then, he stopped talking about it. I figure God is going to punish him and keep him around until he’s 120.

Not that he doesn’t push the envelope every chance he gets. I’ve posted before about the indoor rock-climbing and the para-sailing. A couple of years ago in Alaska he and my mother (who deserves a medal herself) did the white-water rafting thing. Rumour has it he and the grandsons are currently planning a paint ball outing. I’ve come to accept the fact that when Dad finally does meet his maker, it's probably not going to be pretty. I have visions of emergency service personnel standing around, shaking their heads and saying something like, “What was this guy thinking?!”

At 19 years of age my dad left his life in Scotland behind and boarded a ship bound for Canada. And for the past 56 years he's been growing, serving and making a life for himself and his family. Dad is an inspiration to our whole family. He believes that learning is for life, and he proved it a few years back by returning to university to complete the degree he had to postpone when his kids came along. A voracious reader, he currently has several books on quantum physics on the go. I'm hoping he's going to explain it all to me when he figures it out...

My dad is the head revolutionary in a family of people who will no longer tolerate the way things are. Funny, a decade ago we were all good, status quo-abiding citizens. I actually think it was Dad who started it all by going back to school and asking questions about the things he had taken for granted his whole life. Now, he and my mom encourage all their kids to learn, to question, and to push through the sides of the boxes that use to enclose our worlds. They taught us that with a little pushing those walls will come down.

In short, my dad refuses to go quietly, and that's one of the things I love about him.

Happy Birthday, Dad. You rock.
Love, Mike & Sue

Hinduism & Christianity

It's clear from the state of this blog that I'm back at school. Greek is taking most of my time, so my posts are mostly pointing you to stuff other people have said. Ah well, for everything there is a season...

My other course is John Stackhouse's World Religions, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. My reasons for taking the course are many, but they include something Dr. Stackhouse himself outlined during our first lecture: Some of these folks are doing God's will, and we have much to learn from them. Fascinating.

We're starting off with Hinduism, and I've already been struck by something very, very significant from my way of thinking. It seems from my reading that Hindus don't differentiate between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between belief and practice. My Eastman text puts it this way:

"Every Indian system seeks the truth, not as academic "knowledge for its own sake," but to learn the truth which shall make men free. This is not, as it has been called, the modern pragmatic attitude. It is much larger and much deeper than that. It is not the view that truth is measured in terms of the practical, but rather that the truth is the only sound guide for practice, that truth alone has efficacy as a guide for man in his search for salvation....

In India, philosophy is for life; it is to be lived. It is not enough to know the truth; the truth must be lived. The goal of the Indian is not to know the ultimate truth but to realize it, to become one with it."
(Eastman, ed. p. 17)

With this as context, Gandhi's quote makes even more sense to me:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Mahatma Gandhi

So this morning at about 4:30 am (damned insomnia) I was up doing a little surfing. Checking my blog stats I saw a hit from someone who googled a statement from Bill Maher that I posted almost two years ago:

"I mean, the teachings of Jesus are a great moral guide. Jesus is one of the greatest role models I can think of. It's a shame that Christianity has gone so far from the teachings of Jesus. I don't know anyone less Jesus-like than most Christians."
Bill Maher

And finally, well, get this: As I sat on the bus this morning the guy sitting next to me pulls out a copy of David Watson's I Believe in The Church. I glanced over his shoulder and read this:

"A Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore, said to a Christian leader in India, 'On that day when we see Jesus Christ living out his life in you, on that day we Hindus will flock to your Christ even as doves flock to their feeding ground.'"
(p. 305)

I think Someone is trying to tell me something.

You know, the video "If We Are His Body" has been making the rounds this week. (I think I saw it first over at the Mission.) Somedays the cynic in me wants to say, "If we are his body... somebody better call 911."

Adventures in Public Transit

Yesterday it was a great conversation with Shiz on political and humanitarian issues. (Sent your email yet?)

Today we blew the transmission coming off the Second Narrows Bridge, and had to wait in the rain for the next bus.

Never a dull moment on the transit system...