Archive | April, 2012

Poser Humility

26 Apr

It goes something like this:

 ”I got saved, but somewhere in the process, I lost my way and grew really prideful. But thankfully, Jesus saved me from my pride! He took me through a season of brokenness. This season was very painful emotionally, but when I came out of it, I knew that I had to put the Lord first in everything I do.”

If you are an evangelical Christian, the odds are you’ve heard this story before, or at least some version of it. It’s part of our mythology as western Christians. It’s a linear plot, with a definite beginning, middle and end. It’s told, oftentimes with triumphant conviction from a brightly lit stage in a church sanctuary. And most importantly, it’s very very clean. Complete with crisp clear cut edges and wrapped up with a neat, pretty bow. Bt the problem is, this story is naive at best, and downright manipulative at worst.
It’s manipulative because we all too often use it to fulfill the desires of our religious, law-worshipping hearts.

I think if we’re all honest, we can admit to having seen others use this story, and using it ourselves. I know I can admit to it. I can remember times when I’ve coveted a ministry position of leadership at church. I had known that old leaders were stepping down soon and would be raising someone up to take their place. The first symptom is comparison. You start sizing up the competition. Thinking to yourself, “Yeah. I’ve been more involved with that guy.” or “That guy hasn’t been in our small group very long, but he’s got a really powerful story…” and then you drop the bomb. You meet up with that leader who is looking for a budding young disciple to fill his mighty shoes and you lay it on. The humility story. This communicates that you are in no way a prideful person who will abuse this privilege to lead others, or allow this position to become an idol in your life. But the irony is, if that were true, you probably wouldn’t feel the need to say it.

I cringe to think of my behavior in the past. Looking back, I find it incredibly sophomoric and embarrassing, but I might as well get used to it, because I imagine that feeling will be quite prevalent at the end of time when I am sitting at the throne of Christ reviewing the instant replay of my life. I’m sure there will be some choices I’m currently making under the pretense of wisdom that Jesus will see and then say, with a grin, “Really? How’d that work out for you?” Well. Good thing He payed for all that, right?

Anyway, my central concern with this pride and humility story is that it side-steps quite a lot of scripture. See, in our brand of first-world Jesus-following, we are obsessed with open and shut cases. We like to tell stories in a moralistic problem-to-solution format. We want to tell people about the disease, and the cure. So we tell them that they are sick with sin and that we used to be sick too, but then we took the Jesus medicine (and a spoonful of sugar to help it go down) and now we’re all better! The only problem is that real sin, like it’s described in the bible, isn’t just a little virus that we fight off with some antibiotics. It is a deadly, marching cancer that roars about like a lion waiting for someone to devour. Paul describes the work of Jesus in our lives to be something more like chemotherapy. It’s a long, sometimes painful process. A journey, that isn’t pretty, but in the end, you’re promised to receive life. It’s called sanctification, a theological concept  I’m not entirely sure we’re comfortable with in our culture.

So when we talk about pride and humility, perhaps it shouldn’t be in a cleanly told tale, in which we get our character development like a happy meal. Perhaps it should be told with fear and trembling. Or with dazzling hope. Or both. Perhaps our story shouldn’t be about how we had a “wilderness experience” and are now permanently better for it. Perhaps it should be that Christ went through the wilderness for us and, though we weren’t fixed by a magic bullet, we were given a promise to one day be free of the fetters of this world, and as a token of that promise, we were given the Holy Spirit, who gives comfort and guidance in the journey.

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Video

And as I Prophesied, There Came a Sound

24 Apr

Spoken Word + Electronica. I call it, “Astro Poetry.”

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We Bought a Zoo

18 Apr

You might remember a little while ago seeing a movie poster depicting a Zebra with a bow on its head. You may have even seen Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson’s names on it an thought to yourself: Hm. Both of those people are pretty famous. Wonder why I haven’t heard of this movie… And then you might have gone on into the movie theatre to see something ridiculous like Real Steel. Or, you could’ve been like me and were looking for something to watch on date night with your wife. You might have looked it up and thought: Well, at least it’s PG. Might as well. And then you might have walked out of the theatre in tears because it was so good. That’s right. You should go buy this movie, which just came out on DVD.

There is a certain kind of movie. Movies that aren’t always action-packed or suspenseful, but instead are filled with characters you fall in love with. They are real, human, whole-hearted characters. The kind of characters who make you feel like they are a part of your family, simply because you want them to be. These movies are often focused on a range of topics, but more than anything else they are simply about a life well lived. Not scrupulously examined and planned. Not wasted in listlessness, but lived passionately from the heart and a beautiful set of values. I am addicted to these movies, and they only come out ever so often, but We Bought a Zoo is one of them.

Spoilers Ahead:

We Bought a Zoo is about a Benjamin Mee (Damon), an adventure writer grappling with the death of his wife. Amid the struggle to somehow move on with life while staying true to his love for his late wife, he is challenged with becoming a single father to his teenage son Dylan and kindergarten daughter Rosie. Somewhere in this midst of it all, it just makes sense to Benjamin to buy and save a struggling Zoo. “Why not?” He explains later in the movie that it was an attempt to move on from the passing of his wife but, as it turns out her memory follows him to the zoo. This is most clearly illustrated in Ben’s relationship to Spar, the zoo’s dying Bengalese Tiger. Johansson’s character Kelly Foster is the primary zookeeper who struggles with her affection for Benjamin while trying to convince him that it is time to let go of Spar. Benjamin’s journey to do so eventually opens him up to repairing a strained relationship with his son, and he finally realizes that it is possible to move on from the loss of a loved one with life-affirming hope all the while holding onto the memory of the good that person brought into his life. All it takes it 20 seconds of insane courage.

Philippians 4:8

This is the kind of artwork Paul must have had in mind when he wrote Philippians 4:8. It is life-affirming, people-affirming and it puts the kind of love the Father has for us first. I find it profound how a movie that may have not been made by Christians at all can preach the Gospel by showing it. It is as if God through this film is saying, “This is how you do family when you are alive in Christ. It is messy, imperfect, and utterly human… But it’s sopping with hope. It’s drenched in goodness. It abides by the law of love.” Perhaps the best picture I can come up with to illustrate the heart of this movie is in the end, when we see that the Mee’s along with the zookeepers, who had become a part of their family, are able to open the park. We see a success story not just of a small business but of a family who have become unified in the process. We see tourists enjoying the park while flying red kites, which previously had been described as a trigger for Benjamin. A painful reminder of his late wife. But they had become something beautiful. An ultimate sign that Benjamin had discovered how to celebrate all the wonderful things about his wife, and still move on into a happy future with his children.

I am not suggesting that you go see this movie. I am asking you to please go see it. In the words of Rosie Mee, you’re happy will be too loud after watching it.

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Reading: It’s a Justice Issue.

16 Apr

The movement to see a greater degree of works of mercy in modern times has really been building momentum in the past few years, but it is still in some ways a fledgeling movement. Every day, more organizations are being formed and pushed to the forefront of the great justice dialogue. Organizations that seek to put an end to things like human trafficking, abortion, and hunger. However little attention has been given to literacy as a huge justice issue. Many Americans seem to liken it to things like economy and healthcare. Services in the political arena where we banter over who-does-what right. But we are tragically short-changing ourselves and our desire to see justice roll down like a mighty flood in our land when we do so. Here are the facts:

  1. The Achievement Gap. Back in the days of segregation, educators noted what they called an achievement gap between white and black reading scores.. Some racist researchers heralded this as a sign of the superiority of the white race, but we now know that, if you throw any people-group into their own crumby schools with lower standards on literally everything, that group isn’t going to learn how to read. The problem, however, is that this achievement gap still exists today. But, since the civil rights movement, it hasn’t been between whites and blacks but rather, rich and poor. So if we’re going to call the plight of the poor a justice issue, we have to then call literacy a justice issue. It stands to simple reason that children growing up in poverty without learning to read well enough to decode say, a job application, are going to stay in poverty.
  2. The Problem. Meet the NAEP. It’s considered the gold-standard of tests and can discern reading skills with a tried and true amount of accuracy. Every state in the country is required to submit NAEP scores to the federal government, but they are also allowed to invent their own test by which they will be held accountable according to the standards of No Child Left Behind, as well as the soon-to-be-in-effect Race to the Top program. Texas, for example, often makes its own standardized tests. There was the TEAMS test, the TAAS test, the TAKS test, and this year, Texas students began taking the STAAR test. The reason for this has always been to raise scores. One test is mastered, and the next is made more challenging. But here’s the problem: One look at a graph depicting reading achievement by the NAEP will show that, although State-made tests (which measure students according to percentile rankings on a bell curve) report growth in reading, the NAEP (which measures students according to their actual proficiency of reading skills) shows that reading has remained stagnant.
  3. The Very Simple Solution. The very simple solution is to help teachers. Teachers are in great need of many things: Basic classroom supplies, training, and most of all lots and lots of books. But there is simply no money. One fact about the tests I described above that is not well known is that they are exorbitantly expensive. There is a small group of companies which create these tests and they have essentially created  monopolies in their various regions, Pearson being the one that dominates much of the South. For the STAAR and other assessments, it is reported that the state of Texas has a contract with Pearson to, between the years of 2010 to 2015, to pay them $468,392,617.00 of its already dwindling education budget. This is the cost of testing-focused government programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Schools are loosing valuable supplies, laying off teachers, and even closing due to financial lack. In my district alone, there are 8 public schools closing in order to balance the budget. Where is the money going? Tests. So the simple solution is this: Stop killing our children with tests. Yes, the federal government needs the scores, but it will get NAEP scores regardless, which are more accurate in the first place. So, let the NAEP do its job and end the STAAR.

For the sake of the poor in our country, we need to move past vain political debate. Republicans and Democrats have equally failed our schools and this is largely because the politicians they produce are well versed in economics, foreign affairs, military, and general politics, but rarely well versed in the educational system. If you look up a list of American presidents and what they did before politics, you will find more soldiers than schoolteachers, and this is very telling of what we value as Americans. I suspect it would be equally as grim in a list of US Secretaries of Education. It certainly is in the case of Arne Duncan, who has never been in a classroom of 10-year-olds for more than 10 minutes…

But I will get off my soap-box now. I am a teacher, so it’s obvious that I might have some bias in the matter. But I got into teaching because I saw education as the door through which a child can escape a life time of poverty and hunger. I began this post by commenting on the justice movement happening in America these days and I’ll end it by pointing out that, in the next few years, as we free trafficking victims and feed the hungry, we’re going to begin seeing that the hungry will still be hungry. Trafficking victims will still be poor and at high risk of being taken once more. This is because we will see that, without the basic skills of literacy, the oppressed and marginalized of our society will only stay in a state of poverty until the day they die. What will we do for them? Will we become the passing pharisee walking by the proverbial dying man on the street, or will we become the good samaritan, who stops and lift another out of their own blood and filth?

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The Hunger Games, Part 2.

14 Apr

A couple weeks ago, I reviewed the Hunger Games in its incarnation as a book. I hadn’t seen the movie when I read the book and wrote the review, but I promised a follow up after having seen the movie. It’s generally accepted that books are always better than movies, but some stories are more well-translated to film than others. Sometimes this is because of the integrity of the story, sometimes it’s not. I must say, this was a well done translation to film.

Beforehand, I had been told that the movie “follows the book pretty closely,” and for the most part, it did. I could almost name the chapter of the book as I was watching. But it was actually the few departures from the book I found most telling of the film, because to move from a 348 page book to a 142-ish page script is quite a feat without sacrificing precious little pages on a change. So, the filmakers (which included author Suzanne Collins) must have had very good reason to do so.

Spoilers Ahead:

Some of the more minor changes were for fixing problems that arose from the voice change in the adaptation. Here’s what I mean by that: The book was told in the first-person and movies often have no choice but to be in third-person, because it’s annoying to watch a movie with someone narrating the whole thing. So there were some tricks the director had to pull in order to maintain the story. For example, when Katniss finds herself trapped in a tree and, with Rue’s help, devises a plan to release the tracker jackers on her adversaries, the audience needed to know what tracker jackers are. After all, no normal wasps can kill a human that quickly, so it would warrant some explanation when they do. In the book, we are taken into Katniss’ head, where she explains to us the origin of the genetically engineered wasps, while in the movies we cut to a scene of the show’s commentators giving an explanation of the creatures. Another of these changes was focused on the dog-like creatures in the end. If you remember from my review of the book, this was my least favorite scene, because the beasts just seemed like an anti deus ex machina that came out of nowhere for the sole purpose of keeping the story interesting. In the movie, we are shown a scene of a game-maker working on a hologram of the dog and placing it in the arena. This unwittingly helped the story because it gave us some forewarning.

The biggest change, however, was the movie’s side-plot involving the Head Game-Maker and his meetings with President Snow. In the movie there were many cut scenes involving Snow’s discontent with the amount of hope Katniss was creating in the oppressed people of his country and the Game-Maker’s struggle to contain it, resulting in his eventual failure and execution. I have to say, this side-plot was a game changer for me. I loved it. Not only did it explain the dog-like creatures in a way the book didn’t, but it addressed one of the biggest problems I had with the book, and that was it’s hopelessness. While it was still Katniss struggling against an impossibly strong totalitarian government, the Game-Maker became a definite antagonist who Katniss eventually defeated, though she had not technically even meet him. This made the suggestion for us the audience that perhaps it was possible for good to triumph over evil.

 Philippians 4:8

There’s no way to get around it. The subject matter of the Hunger Games story is grizzly and brutal. It goes beyond the question of simple violence, because it isn’t just about enemies fighting for something they believe in. It’s about kids forced to become enemies over something they don’t believe in, or else be killed. This subject alone makes a case for questioning this film as a follower of Jesus, because this is not a subject that is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, or commendable. However in light of the full story, we do get some elements of good vs. evil, and the struggle not to succumb to the manipulation of evil men. I would say that if there is some line between what we should be for and against in the media, this is on or close to the line. I would certainly not want my children to see it if I was a parent. There is, of course, a concern raised over the portrayal of violence in film, as well as sexuality and I have to say, I was pleased that this movie was not as gruesome as it could have been, and there were even a few scenes depicting Katniss and Peeta kissing that I have concerns over. Not because they were inappropriate, but because Hollywood tends to over-sexualize things until they are inappropriate. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case in the Hunger Games. Still, consider yourself strongly cautioned for the violent and brutal nature of this movie’s theme. And please, leave the kids at home.

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Special Announcement!

13 Apr

Poignant. Gripping. A little awkward… These are just three of the things that have been said about me. By me. In the last five minutes. You too can experience these qualities on Saturday, April 21st at Legacy Cafe, as I will be performing in my first ever double-booked poetry reading. I will be reading at two separate events at two separate times in the same day, at the same location. Here are the details:

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North Africa Fundraiser

Come to Legacy Cafe any time from 2:00 to 6:00 for Live Music, and an Art Show. I will be featured as one of the performers and will be performing some spoken words set to music and a few poems as well. The nature of this reading will be more overtly spiritual with a stronger evangelical tone. All proceeds will benefit some of my friends who are heading to North Africa this summer to encourage church-planting efforts in a predominantly Islamic area.

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Bohemia April Issue Release Party

Come back to Legacy Cafe at 7:00 and stay as late as 10:00 for Bohemia Art and Literary Journal’s party celebrating the release of it’s “Dream Issue.” There will be some live music, but my understanding is that much of the performances will feature some of the writers published in the issue, myself included. This reading will be much more contemplative and academic in nature. I will be reading at 8:15.

 

I hope to see you there! Directions to Legacy Cafe here.

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Vulnerbility

11 Apr

Tonight at Lifegroup my wife showed us aTED talk from a psychiatrist who spent 6 years studying shame. Her research was astounding. We are simultaneously the most anorexic, overweight, addicted and overmedicated generation of adults in human history, the reason being that our sense of shame is so all encompassing. However, she also spoke about a certain percentile of the population who she referred to as those who live “whole-heartedly.” They aren’t necessarily what we would think of as the most successful people, or the most fill-in-the-blank, although they tend to thrive. The defining quality of these people is a strong sense of belonging, rooted in the belief that they are worthy of love and acceptance. But here’s the twist: nearly all of these “whole-hearted” people, when asked, stated that vulnerability is one of the most important factors in the way they live their lives. Sounds Biblical, right?

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It seems counter-intuitive to think that what is, essentially an outward display of weakness, positively correlates to a life well lived. But as usual, modern day research merely shows that the principles spoken of in the Old and New Testaments have always been sincerely and profoundly true. Psalm 22, from where we get the famous line, “my God, why have you forsaken me?” opens with a wretched king David lamenting the success of his enemies, as well as his own helplessness: “I am a worm, not a man!” (v. 6) Many pastors are quick to point out the undulating streams of worship that flow from his mouth in the same breath, but I noticed something new tonight in this passage. Verse 20 has David crying, “Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the dogs!” 

I’ll be frank. I’ve been going to church since I was a teenager, so when we talk about being honest with God, being raw and real, brutal with how we feel, yet praising Him simultaneously… I get that. But finding the strength–no, the courage–to somehow say “I am a worm,” while saying “my life is precious.” That is something I’m not used to. I didn’t grow up with it, and odds are few of you reading this grew up with it. That’s because the economy of our current culture is based on lament. We go about our lives, using stress or pain as a status symbol. There is something subconscious in us that says our importance comes from the amount of problems we have. Most of us honestly could do something about these problems if we wanted. We could get more sleep, say no to a few more things. But we don’t, because deep down we still buy into that old lie that our worth comes from what we do.

It’s no different within the walls of our churches, either. Within the body of Christ we are silently competing with one another to see who can sleep the least, or expend the most energy on ministry. We glorify those who give, and those who give beyond their human capacity to give, we make into our own Christian celebrities. That is, until this unhealthy lifestyle lands a leader in the middle of a scandal. Then we disown them.

And yet, here was David, a man who defined himself as a worm. At this point in his life, he really was a worm, too. A king stripped of his crown. How embarrassing! But he still believed his life was precious. Because David, moreso than any other figure in the Old Testament looked to God as his justifier. And so as God hung on a cross, He quoted David: “Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabachthani!” Why have you forsaken me? Christ, who was the very essence of life. The being through which all goodness procedes made Himself to be a worm. It levels the playing field, doesn’t it? The One who is precious made Himself like us. So we are precious. Do you see it yet? It’s going to take plenty of vulnerability to get there.

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A Bottle Full of Mercy

9 Apr

In high school, I had a French teacher named Madame El Shaal. She was an Egyptian woman who spoke Arabic as a first language, French as a second, and English as a third. We didn’t like her.

Madame was a heavyset woman of a very lightly olive skin-tone, and she was not well versed in American slang, idiom, sarcasm, intonations, music, or really anything else of which teenagers are typically on the cutting edge. Every day she would come to school with the look of a caged squirrel, hide her face behind her teachers’ edition and read from it. When we were expected to repeat the French vocabulary and conjugations she recited, she would peek her eyes over the top of her book. This was our cue to respond. You could always pick her out of the crowd in the halls because she was the only teacher who not only wore a traditional hijab (head scarf), but nervously made her way down the busy paths of students, communicating only through nods and anxious smiles.

My fellow students and I hated her class at first, mainly because learning a new language (or anything worth while for that matter) while your hormones are raging is difficult. But we eventually found methods to cope with our discontent and those methods exclusively entailed taking advantage of Madame El Shaal. I would often sit with a friend of mine in class and play cards. If she asked us what we were doing, we would simply say, “playing cards.” If she asked us to stop, we would say “okay,” and promptly return to our game. If she told us to go out into the hall, we would say, “okay” and promptly return to our game. If she told us to go to the office, we would say, “okay” and–do what?–promptly return to our game. At times, she would check our homework, which entailed walking briskly from one side of the room to the other. In these cases, I would allow her to check a friend’s homework, then I would take that very homework and returned to my seat. “This is my homework,” I would say, winking and mouthing the words I’m lying to you right now, “It doesn’t belong to anyone else!” She would look at me puzzled and say “…Okay…” the she woud give me a 100 and move on.

But on September 11, 2001 class was very different. Madame didn’t speak. She played a recording and had us copy down the vocab words. She had us do book work silently. She sat at her desk, placed her fingers on her temples and spoke on the phone. She came to school on September 12, 2001 without her hijab on. It was the first time I had ever seen her hair. From that day forward, she became even more anxious than she was before. Obviously terrified to be a Muslim in America, she often seemed preoccupied. She called her family during class and whispered to them in Arabic, covering her mouth to hide the language she spoke. On one occasion she stopped teaching mid-sentence because she saw me playing rock-paper-scissors with a friend, and just starred at me. Her gaze cracked as her eyes welled up in tears and she retreated back to her seat and sobbed for about 10 minutes. It was as if someone had dumped water down my back. I had never seen how ugly my sin was more clearly than on that day. Madame made it partially another year at my highschool before resigning.

Fast-forward 9 years. May of 2010. I was in Leogane, Haiti with a group from my church, attempting to follow up on some relief efforts, as well as plant churches in the primarily Voodoo community. The day had grown long and I was beginning to feel the weight of my own back mount up against me in the hot sun and humid air. Everywhere I had gone, I had been followed by a pack of street kids demanding candy, money, or anything I had on me. One even demanded the shirt off my back. They would point to anything on me and say, “you give me.” This became very taxing on me as I realized that, no matter what I did, the color of my skin was associated with free stuff. And the children’s manners weren’t any better. They followed me for literally an hour, shouting “hey you!” because this was about all they could say in English. Tired and at the end of my rope, I climbed into our team’s van at the end of the day, pushed the kids’ hands away so that I could close the door and buried my face in my hands. It was the closest I could come to getting some alone time. As we drove on through the village, I could tell that our van was being surrounded everywhere we went, until we reached the fabled “Voodoo trees.” At this point the kids fled as a Voodoo priest emerged, shouting at us in Creole and throwing bottles at our van.

I tell these two stories in conjunction to make a point. In Haiti I was tired, confused, and I didn’t know the culture. So when a witchdoctor threw a bottle at me, it felt bigger than just a weirdo throwing trash. It felt dangerous. It felt threatening. I needed to know I was okay. I was a foreigner and I needed a friend. But perhaps the bottle flung from that mad hand was full of the mercy of God, because as I look back on that experience, I can see I wore the same anxious expresion that day as Madame El Shaal wore. Jesus said “love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) But how easily I forget it. I hope I will find myself capable of remembering the next time I see someone wearing that same anxious look.

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Video

Kony 2012, Part 2

5 Apr

On Maundy Thursday, the Son of God got down on all fours and scrubbed caked mud and fecal matter off of the repulsive, smelly feet of simple humans. Peter protested… And our protest to being cleaned still goes on today.

Not many things I read in the news tend to get under my skin so much, but I must confess, I’ve been upset and appalled at the relentless amount of criticism and personal attack leveled against the Invisible Children organization. You’ll remember I’m sure, the meteoric rise of popularity achieved by the group’s first video around a month ago. Their strategy was to make the relatively unknown Joseph Kony wildly infamous for his horrendous crimes against humanity which puts him in ranks with Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden as one of the worst killers of all time. This way, the appropriate actions may be taken to end his ravaging of central Africa. But the emotional element of this film was blood in the water for the internet sharks.

Over the past month the organization and particularly one of its founders Jason Russell, have been subject to sensationalist and unsubstantiated criticism. The accusations have ranged anywhere from ill-informed do-gooders to racist con-artists. Admittedly, the video focused on the emotional factors of the Kony problem, but honestly, why shouldn’t it? Innocent children are being kidnapped, forced to kill their parents, raped, and brainwashed into becoming child soldiers. Doesn’t it seem twisted not to be sickened by this?

Subsequently, the story of Russell being taken into police custody for public indecency and lewd behavior became the focus of our attention. The same critics who called the Kony 2012 video “inaccurate” wrongly reported to the world than Russell was arrested for public intoxication. In actuality, he was never arrested but rather hospitalized and diagnosed by a psychiatrist with short-term psychosis brought on by extreme stress, dehydration, and sleeplessness. But this information didn’t spread nearly as effectively as the misinformation that a drunken crook was showing his true colors. The internet had destroyed a man and then laughed as it told it’s own story about him.

Of course, I do not condone Russell’s actions. He committed sin by allowing himself to reach a point of madness. But it seems to me that the more costly sin was committed by the anonymous masses. The ones that accused someone who just wanted to save the lives of African children, of racism and theft! I shudder to think what their sin may have done to the effort to save those children, because the Invisible Children’s newest video, which was released today, has been viewed nearly 300 times less than the original video. Nevertheless, The new video is a masterpiece. It beautifully rises above the pitiable politics we have mounted in its way. It responds to its critics simply by showing the truth. I implore you to please watch this new video and pass it around on twitter and facebook. Let’s restore what was taken from a movement that is so close to bringing justice to a ransacked part of the world.

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus cleaned Peter’s feet without regard to the dirty reality of the human condition. At first Peter protested but Christ, with sincere eyes I imagine, told him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share in me.” The desperate disciple replied, “Then wash not just my feet, but my head and my hands too!”

Let us humbly ask Jesus to once again wash away the stench of our depravity. Let us not protest when He does so. And when we see someone else washing feet in the name of Christ, let us join them, instead of attacking them. We are in this together, no matter our differenced. And He is for us.

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