Macro Day at Table Mountain

After arriving at the airport in Cape Town we received a wonderful singing welcome by a youth group from a nearby township church. It was an emotional and embodied experience. I was invited by a young woman to dance with them and remembered again how bad my dance skills actually are. But being part of that welcome was both freeing and humbling.

We then headed up to one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World - Table Mountain. We rode up 1,000 meters in a cable car to start our journey around one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

The view of Cape Town was quite stunning. Seeing the city from above on a macro level was so interesting. The ocean and waterfront from above is gorgeous. But the townships where so many are forced to live by economic inequity and history were also visible and quite obviously different from the rest of the city.

Most of this trip will be about micro experiences but this big picture view was a vivid and visceral way to begin.

My goal is to not forget the macro view as we immerse ourselves into the micro stories of this beautiful country.

May we all be open to see the macro and the micro around us. The view can change our perspective and the lives of all involved. 

Travel days ...

Well, it’s Tuesday morning and we're about to land in South Africa. I've been on flights for 19 hours since Sunday evening.  I've showered in the Frankfurt airport. I've been drinking enough water to float a small ship. And I've heard more languages spoken around me than is typical in my realm of experience.

I've watched six movies, read two books, and surfed the net. And I've played with babies and met people traveling for business and pleasure.

I've done all of this knowing one thing … I am on a grand adventure. In one hour (as of this writing) I will land in Cape Town, South Africa for a two-week immersion into the systems of racism and their impact on the lives of the people who live in the midst of significant poverty and oppression, which too often live hand-in-hand. We are doing a humanitarian, social justice trip with some basic tourism thrown in. And we hope to bring back learnings from the reconciliation process in our own work in the US.

Travel is something I have done before. But mainly it has been domestic travel. International travel is not something I have done much. My wife and I went to Russia 16 years ago to adopt our son, we've gone into Canada and Mexico for day trips, and I went to Haiti in 1980 with the General Board of Global Ministries’ UMCOR Division. But this is different.

This time I am traveling for both personal and professional reasons. This time I am flying way out of my comfort zone and that is intentional.

What are you planning in 2016 to move out of your comfort zone, to further the work of the kindom, and to bring about positive change in your life and in the world?

Small steps or big steps - taking that first step is what’s important.

Me? I'm going to leap. Join me on the journey.

South Africa Trip - Pre-Trip Notes

I am heading to South Africa on Sunday, January 3, 2016. I will be traveling to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Robbin Island, Pretoria/Tshwane, Soweto, Stellenbosch/Paarl, Dinokeng Reserve, and Pilaneberg game park. I am traveling with a group of 14 people on a humanitarian/social justice tour.

“Travel is organized through Mission Vision Tours with the intent to engage conversations of race and racism, systemic oppression of groups of peoples, and to explore solutions to such injustices.” (From MV Tours Humanitarian Travel Letter)

We are meeting with authors, pastors, Truth and Reconciliation Commission members, spending a day with kids from an orphanage, swimming in the Indian Ocean, spending time at a game reserve, hiking the mountains near Franschhoek, and swimming in the mountain pools.  It is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am delighted to be going.

While I have taken some significant time off from my blog, this occasion gives me the chance to start again – for at least the two weeks that I am away – and take you on this journey with me. I will post pictures, blog about my thoughts and experiences, and keep my family up to date about how things are going.

One of the things that I am most excited about is hearing the stories of those living in South Africa who have experienced the pain, racism, and systemic oppression related to Apartheid and post-Apartheid South Africa. I think there is much to learn.  And I look forward to opening up my heart and mind to hear what they have to say. I want to sit there and soak in all that I can.

This trip will help lay the groundwork for one of my next book projects about social justice preaching. And I think there are some interesting parallels between the US and South Africa in the ways people of color have been treated.

I invite you to follow along if you wish and to experience this amazing culture through my eyes. I have much to learn and am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Advent and Christmas Are Not for Sissies!

Christmas is an amazing time of year.  It is filled with shopping trips and lists of things to do.  It is filled with writing cards and spending time on line at the local post office.  It is filled with family gatherings and craziness with relatives you seldom get to spend time with.  It is filled with rich food and too many snacks sitting around to munch on.  It is filled with long lines and gift returns.  It is filled with company parties and too many adult beverages.  It is filled with hectic schedules and stressful travel arrangements.  It is filled with rushing about and feeling behind too much of the time.   It is filled with much, too much that can drain us spiritually and emotionally from the true meaning of the season.

But the Christmas season is not yet here – it’s close but it has yet to arrive.  We are still in Advent – the liturgical season of preparation for the coming of the Christ child - despite how we might be living in the present.  Advent is a time of expectant waiting and anticipation for the Second Coming of the Christ as well.  It is about being ready.  It is about preparing ourselves to receive this amazing gift.  It is about celebrating the first coming while preparing for the second.  It is the beginning of the liturgical year, but too often we rush through it without embracing the opportunities it affords.  I have seen far too many examples of this in the past month.  And I have fallen victim to it a few times as well.

We want to rush through Advent to get to Christmas as quickly as we can.  We rush into singing Christmas hymns because we cannot wait.  We rush into the stores at midnight on Black Friday because Christmas shopping cannot come too quickly.  We rush into the joy of Christmas without wanting to experience the despair often associated with anticipation and waiting.

Rushing past the waiting is easy.  Waiting for the coming of Christ is hard.  It’s not for sissies.  It means embracing the reality of being on a journey that brings us closer to God and closer to the coming of our Savior.  But it means waiting in the brokenness.  It means taking the journey without shortcuts. 

We wait for a Savior that comes to heal our broken world, who comes to free the captive and give sight to the blind, who comes to bring justice to those who are afflicted and oppressed, who comes to make the world what God intends, who comes to bind our wounds, who comes to make things right.  But we have to wait and prepare for that coming.

Waiting is still where we sit – for a few days more.  If you, like me, have rushed too much into the Christmas Season too quickly – take these last few days and nights to truly prepare.  Take these last few days to wait expectantly.  Take these last few days to hear once again – or for the very first time - the lyrics of the great hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Refrain

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Refrain

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Refrain

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Refrain

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Refrain

Fears, Smears!!

Many of us have fears.  They are more common than most people believe.  Common ones include: fear of flying, fear of speaking in public, fear of heights, fear of dark, fear of intimacy, fear of death, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of spiders, fear of flying, fear of water, fear of dogs, etc.  The list goes on and on.  As a preacher and preaching professor I do not have the fear of speaking in public (but I do still get nervous).  I do not shriek at the sight of mice or spiders.  And I am a calm flyer.  Dogs – well, I am allergic to them and their fur/licking creeps me out but I am not afraid of them.  So when I think of fears, I am not sure if I actually have a fear of something other than fear of failure.  But fear of failure is one I think almost everyone has. 

But I have friends and family who live with significant fears.  I have a friend who cannot drive over bridges without having an anxiety attack.  I have a Mom who never learned to swim so we grew up with her serious discomfort around water.  I have a colleague who is terrified of flying so he drives to every conference or family event he has to go to – even driving days without stops to avoid flying.  And I have a best friend who is afraid of heights.  She got caught at the top of a Ferris wheel one time and now is terrified of heights and specifically of Ferris wheels.

We were recently in Chicago together and visited Navy Pier.  On my plan for the day was riding the giant Ferris wheel.  On her list was avoiding the Ferris wheel at all costs.  For those who are uninitiated this Ferris wheel is “150-foot-high. Modeled after the world's very first Ferris wheel, an engineering marvel constructed for Chicago's 1893 World Colombian Exposition, the Navy Pier Ferris wheel lifts visitors to unparalleled sweeping views of the skyline and lakefront. The Pier's wheel has forty gondolas seating six passengers each.” (From Navy Pier publicity)

So there we were … standing just 50 yards away from this behemoth and I ask casually, “Wanna try to conquer a fear and ride the Ferris wheel?”  I just knew she would say no.  But out of her mouth came – “well …”  I knew it was time.  I showed her that this Ferris wheel does not stop – it just slowly moves and you hop on.  She agreed so I quickly ran to get our $6 tickets and got in line.  So we did it.  We rode the Ferris wheel and got some amazing pictures of the Chicago skyline. It was thrilling and not as scary as she thought (after one initial anxiety filled minute).

Upon our return to the ground, I was delighted with and proud of my role in helping her overcome this great fear.  (LOL!) More importantly, she was proud of herself.  She had faced a fear and taken the ride of her life.  Actually, overcoming fears is something that is quite hard but it also something we all need to do.  We need to confront what makes us afraid and do what we can to overcome those fears.  Not all of them can be overcome without intervention or counseling – so I do not want to belittle anyone’s fears.  But I do want to address those things that keep us from moving forward.  When we allow our fears to keep us from being our best selves, we need to do something about it.  When we allow our fears to keep us from experiencing life and all it offers us, we need to do something about it.

I believe God is a gracious and powerful God who is present with us always.  So when I am afraid I try to remember that God is there holding me and comforting me.  I believe that and it gives me great comfort.  It may not feel like it helps if ever a BIG fear hits me upside the head but I live in the belief that I can do all things with God.  So bring it on!!

Family Road Trip Time

One line I never thought I would hear in my own car:  “Mom, turn your music down!”   This line was from my pre-teen son yesterday.  We were driving west on the turnpike through Pennsylvania for our family vacation (heading to Ohio and Chicago) and Shelby decided our music was interfering with him listening to his own music.  The adults were listening to soundtracks from Broadway (Mamma Mia, Hairspray, and Rent this trip).  He was evidently not impressed with our music choice or the volume of our singing along with the tunes.  He was also not amused by our car seat dancing.

I remember going on trips with my family growing up where we would take turns picking the radio station and take turns riding the hump – having to take the middle seat.  We read or played car games – like keeping track of states we saw license plates from or playing “I spy.”  We had some good times in the car but we also – my two sisters and I – had plenty of disagreements.  “Don’t touch me!”  “Move your foot!”  “Get off my stuff!”  These were statements heard many times in our family car.  We never killed each other and somehow survived as friends.  So that was a good thing.

I travel with my own family now and we have done car games and sung songs for years.  Now we have technologically advanced traveling.  On this trip we had 3 cell phones, 3 laptops, 1 GPS, 2 Kindles, 1 set of headphones, 2 video cameras, 2 power adapters for car lighter plugs, 2 iPods and enough power cables/cords to string up lights at Christmas.  We also had the unique thrill of trying out the 3G hotspot my phone offers.  So my son was on Facebook as we travelled down the highway.  When we started getting tired we looked up hotels, made a few calls, and got a deal on a room.  It was quite fun.  It’s a whole new world for travel.

But we also spent time just talking.  We talked about past trips, we talked about future vacations, we talked about politics, and we talked about our lives.  It was some dedicated family time in a confined space.  And for that I am grateful.  We are only on day 3 of our vacation and we have more to go on this trip.  Getting away with my family is a privilege.  And I am grateful for the opportunity.  We will have a great time, eat too much, spend some quality time together, try not to spend too much money, make some new memories, and probably get a bit tired of each other, too.  But it will be fun.  We will continue to grow as a family and learn more about each other.  And that is never a bad thing.