Jacob was reading "Alfred Nobel and the Story of the Nobel Prize," - and in case you don't know (because I didn't) here is a brief overview: Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite (gun powder and nitroglycerin), which in turn has caused countless deaths, but also paved the way for modernization in the nineteenth century. The Nobel Prize was a way to redeem himself of those deaths and reward those who worked toward peace. So in reading the first chapter and then discussing Nobel's intent for dynamite and what it ended up being used for, the conversation turned to Iraq, Jacob's only reference point for war and blowing stuff up. He didn't understand what we were doing there. I carefully explained what happened in New York to the towers and said that that was one reason we went into Iraq among others. Jacob very confidently and quite passionately said "That is not what God would want, for us to hurt them because they hurt us." I was speechless, he was right. I asked him what he thought should have been done. He simply replied, "We should have talked to them and asked them to stop." I said "What if they didn't stop, then what?" Jacob said, "Then we should pray and ask God to make them stop." The conversation went on and I began to see things differently. I've never been an advocate for violence of any kind but had an understanding that at times and in certain situations action had to be taken, it was the kind of action I was wrong about. It was one of the most honest and pure conversations I've probably ever had. Jacob saw it very simply. God loves everyone and so should we, we don't hurt the people we love.
I wish I was seven.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Have you ever met a Christian?
An excerpt from
The Irresistible Revolution
Shane Claiborne
Whenever folks ask Mother Teresa about her work in Calcutta, how it was going, what life was like, she would say, "Come and see." Finally, we actually were. I was ready to see Christianity lived out. Brooke and I got a bunch of shots and headed to Calcutta together to live an incredible adventure working alongside Mother Teresa and the sisters among the "poorest of the poor." In the morning, we worked in an orphanage called Nabo Jibon, taking care of children with physical and mental handicaps, many of whom had been abandoned in the train stations. In the afternoons, I worked in Khalighat, the Home for the Destitute and Dying, the first home Mother Teresa had started.
Every week, we would take soap and bubbles and meet about a hundred kids at a water hole. We'd set up a station to help bandage wounds, a station to sew clothes that were torn, and an area for washing off the kids and splashing each other. The brothers would cook a meal for everyone. Some of the kids just wanted to be touched with love, and some confessed that they cut themselves or scraped their knees just so they could be seen in the makeshift clinic, to be held and healed.
When we got there, I thought we were crazy, and then I saw that there were dozens of people from all over the world who had come there to join the work, ordinary radicals just trying to figure out how to love better. We quickly settled into a little hostel across the street from the Mother House, where Mother Teresa and the sisters lived. There were volunteers from all over the world, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty. Some had been there for years. They taught me to love, to risk, to dream. There were missional evangelicals, curious atheists, simple pilgrims, and wild revolutionaries.
One of my great inspirations was a man named Andy, who pretty much ran the home for the dying. (He had been there longer than most of the sisters.) Andy was raw and sassy and gentle. I remember him telling one of the young nuns, "Sister, can you visit Mr. Raju, the lovely man in bed number fourteen? He has s~~~ everywhere." The nuns didn't know how to respond; some would frown and some would giggle. I also remember Andy rolling his eyes with a smile and scolding me for pampering one person too long, because there were "so many who need to be loved."
One day, one of the patients I was very close to was on the verge of death. On my way home, I gave him a hug and stuck a protein cookie under his pillow. Busted. Andy saw what I had done, shook his head hopelessly with a big smile, and we left together to go to Mass. Eventually, Andy told me his story. (He didn't talk much about himself.) He used to be a wealthy businessman in Germany, and then he said he read the gospel and it "messed everything up." He read the part where Jesus commands the disciples to sell everything they have and give it to the poor (Luke 12:33), and he actually did it. I had met some fundamentalists before, but only "selective fundamentalists," not folks who took things like that literally. He sold everything he owned and moved to Calcutta, where for over ten years he had spent his life with the poorest of the poor. He told me that in a few years he might want to go back and visit his beloved mom for a bit, and then he would come back to be with the dying and the destitute, and his new family. I had gone in search of Christianity. And I had found it. I had finally met a Christian.
The Irresistible Revolution
Shane Claiborne
Whenever folks ask Mother Teresa about her work in Calcutta, how it was going, what life was like, she would say, "Come and see." Finally, we actually were. I was ready to see Christianity lived out. Brooke and I got a bunch of shots and headed to Calcutta together to live an incredible adventure working alongside Mother Teresa and the sisters among the "poorest of the poor." In the morning, we worked in an orphanage called Nabo Jibon, taking care of children with physical and mental handicaps, many of whom had been abandoned in the train stations. In the afternoons, I worked in Khalighat, the Home for the Destitute and Dying, the first home Mother Teresa had started.
Every week, we would take soap and bubbles and meet about a hundred kids at a water hole. We'd set up a station to help bandage wounds, a station to sew clothes that were torn, and an area for washing off the kids and splashing each other. The brothers would cook a meal for everyone. Some of the kids just wanted to be touched with love, and some confessed that they cut themselves or scraped their knees just so they could be seen in the makeshift clinic, to be held and healed.
When we got there, I thought we were crazy, and then I saw that there were dozens of people from all over the world who had come there to join the work, ordinary radicals just trying to figure out how to love better. We quickly settled into a little hostel across the street from the Mother House, where Mother Teresa and the sisters lived. There were volunteers from all over the world, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty. Some had been there for years. They taught me to love, to risk, to dream. There were missional evangelicals, curious atheists, simple pilgrims, and wild revolutionaries.
One of my great inspirations was a man named Andy, who pretty much ran the home for the dying. (He had been there longer than most of the sisters.) Andy was raw and sassy and gentle. I remember him telling one of the young nuns, "Sister, can you visit Mr. Raju, the lovely man in bed number fourteen? He has s~~~ everywhere." The nuns didn't know how to respond; some would frown and some would giggle. I also remember Andy rolling his eyes with a smile and scolding me for pampering one person too long, because there were "so many who need to be loved."
One day, one of the patients I was very close to was on the verge of death. On my way home, I gave him a hug and stuck a protein cookie under his pillow. Busted. Andy saw what I had done, shook his head hopelessly with a big smile, and we left together to go to Mass. Eventually, Andy told me his story. (He didn't talk much about himself.) He used to be a wealthy businessman in Germany, and then he said he read the gospel and it "messed everything up." He read the part where Jesus commands the disciples to sell everything they have and give it to the poor (Luke 12:33), and he actually did it. I had met some fundamentalists before, but only "selective fundamentalists," not folks who took things like that literally. He sold everything he owned and moved to Calcutta, where for over ten years he had spent his life with the poorest of the poor. He told me that in a few years he might want to go back and visit his beloved mom for a bit, and then he would come back to be with the dying and the destitute, and his new family. I had gone in search of Christianity. And I had found it. I had finally met a Christian.
Joy's of Motherhood
Last night I got into bed and it was quiet and dark and wonderful, but as I got comfortable I realized something wasn’t quite right. There was something in the bed that shouldn’t be. Apparently a child (or children) straight from the sandbox climbed into my bed and I could feel the sand on the sheets. I actually laid there deciding whether or not I would get up and clean it or just pretend that I was asleep on a beach far, far away.
I got up.
Tonight another child thought they would be helpful and change a wet diaper, they did a great job but between putting on the new diaper and throwing away the wet one something went terribly wrong. They went into the kitchen and proceeded to swing the wet diaper around as hard as they could until all the absorbent gel (which was fully absorbed) flew all over the cupboards, fridge, and floor. That stuff is impossible to clean. It wouldn’t vacuum, it wouldn’t sweep, it barely wiped up. Not to mention it was from a WET diaper . . . nasty. I got it cleaned up and then sanitized in record time nonetheless.
The stain on the carpet from the White Out, the impromptu haircuts, the fat lip from the Hot Wheel, the writing on the wall (literally), the hidden concoctions under the bathroom sink, fractured collar bones, the flooded bathroom floor, Poison Control on speed dial, the permanent marker tattoos, foreign objects and the list goes on. I love it all. Not initially, but eventually.
I have four boys and it becomes more evident and wonderful every second.
I got up.
Tonight another child thought they would be helpful and change a wet diaper, they did a great job but between putting on the new diaper and throwing away the wet one something went terribly wrong. They went into the kitchen and proceeded to swing the wet diaper around as hard as they could until all the absorbent gel (which was fully absorbed) flew all over the cupboards, fridge, and floor. That stuff is impossible to clean. It wouldn’t vacuum, it wouldn’t sweep, it barely wiped up. Not to mention it was from a WET diaper . . . nasty. I got it cleaned up and then sanitized in record time nonetheless.
The stain on the carpet from the White Out, the impromptu haircuts, the fat lip from the Hot Wheel, the writing on the wall (literally), the hidden concoctions under the bathroom sink, fractured collar bones, the flooded bathroom floor, Poison Control on speed dial, the permanent marker tattoos, foreign objects and the list goes on. I love it all. Not initially, but eventually.
I have four boys and it becomes more evident and wonderful every second.
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