I've responded to mass shootings before on this BLOG.  Usually immediately.  Sometimes in a special post, not scheduled in our normal order.  I've taken the platform of my role to quote scripture, reassure, gently press a point (perhaps more lightly than my conscience desired).  But these moments come too often.  And similar words, differently nuanced each time, feel a bit hollow—even if on the way to truth. 

So this time . . . after Gilroy Garlic Festival, then El Paso, then Dayton, then news of 46 shot in Chicago the same weekend (seven dead and two shooting that meet the routine definition of "mass shootings").  I've waited, without managing my role with words.

Instead, I took the lead of a friend in Philadelphia and read Toni Morrison's 1993 speech, when receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Ms. Morrison died the same weekend all this unfolded.  In that speech she speaks of language and its looting.  She brings to mind words from the French thinker Simone Weil, from the 1930s, in her own essay, "The Power of Words."  I've quoted her before in this web log.  I want to include her again, in conversation with Toni Morrison.  I can't help but believe they were prescient, naming some of what fuels hatred today.   Words matter.  Our task, in part, is to restore them. 

If you care to, I invite you to find my post from October 23, 2018, called "The Power of Words" (in honor of Simone Weil) for more of my thoughts. 

For here, I'll let the words of these two prophets go without commentary:

Toni Morrison, from Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1993.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1993/morrison/lecture/

. . . The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed. . . .

Simone Weil, from "The Power of Words," in Simone Weil, An Anthology, ed. Sian Miles (New York: Weidenfeild and Nicolson, 1986): 222, 223.

. . . In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. . . . Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts.  In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.

“Leave an Impact, Come Home Changed” was the mission statement for our Youth Mission Trip to Nassau, Bahamas this summer.  37 youth and chaperones traveled to the beautiful island on Saturday, June 22.  We all arrived at 4:30am for a 6:30am flight into Charlotte, NC.  Our flight was delayed 3.5 hrs and due to the size of our group, the airline held our connecting flight from Charlotte to Nassau, Bahamas.  We RAN to our new gate, and feared the passengers were upset with us.  They were not, and we were on our way to the Caribbean!

We arrived late in the evening and met our hosts and shuttle bus drivers for the week.  When we arrived to the private school providing our lodging, we found no AC, limited space and humidity that many of us had never experienced before.  The student leaders and chaperones didn’t complain.  They were ready to blow up their beds, set up our stations, and begin our work.

Sunday, we worshiped at New Haitian Baptist Church both at 10am and 7pm.  The music was loud and wonderful, and the language spoken was Creole.  With the help of a pastor/interpreter, we understood the message and were even able to share stories of our own.  Five of our students shared their testimonies with the congregation.  We were so proud of their bravery and leadership.  The bonds of their youth group, the relationship with their family members, and the love for their church left few dry eyes among our group.  We took a visit to South Beach and waded in the 100 yards of beach and knee deep water.  This is where many Haitians are dropped off to walk on to the safe grounds of the Bahamas.  Some survive, a lot do not.  We took time to pray for them, their families and those that are about to make the journey. We also prayed for our gratitude to live in a country as wonderful as the USA.

Monday through Thursday we served our new friends at New Haitian Baptist as we cleaned up the church yard, painted pews, tiled & repainted the Sunday School room and the Pastor’s office.  After a short lunch break each day, we took our buses back to the church and hosted VBS for approximately 75 infants – high school students from 3 pm - 6 pm.  We sang, danced, colored, enjoyed snacks and played, played and played some more.  Our teens were fantastic.  They were hot, tired and hungry…but it didn’t show.  They were fun, welcoming, and full of love for each of the children during our time together. 

We also enjoyed other mission opportunities serving the school in which we were staying.  Moving furniture, painting classrooms, hosting VBS for their students kept us very busy. We made connections with the children and teachers we saw on campus each day.  We also served a nursing home; reading Bible scriptures, singing hymns and hearing their stories.  One friend stands out in my mind, stating over and over and over again; “The Bible is the best book ever”!

Friday we were excited to go into downtown Nassau and stay in a hotel and enjoy some tourist sites.  We shopped at the straw market, enjoyed a delicious local meal, danced and sang with the band and took an amazing trip to Blue Lagoon for snorkeling, swimming and watching the dolphin & sting ray encounters.  Our final night we served as a traditional Senior Circle and were able to share stories and memories of each high school graduate.  It was emotional and I was honored to share in this experience.

When our students chose “Leave an Impact, Come Home Changed”, I knew they would create memories to last a lifetime. I hadn’t considered what this trip would mean for me.  I am forever touched at the impact these 29 amazing teens and 7 other adult chaperones made on each other, the Haitian families and myself.  They each will have a special place in my heart forever.

“Small things done with great love will change the world”.  – Mother Teresa

While serving in Lancaster, PA I worked very closely with the Pastor of the Greek Orthodox Church, Fr. Alexander Veronis (now retired).  He was President of the Board of The Council of Churches I led, chaired the Crop Walk Committee that my ministry spearheaded (an effort he started fifty years ago), and was recognized internationally for his lifelong support of missions.  He and his family became very dear to Pam and I.  On Monday of this week, Pam and I called to congratulate them on their family’s upcoming mission project to Migori. a small town in western Kenya, August 2-16.  They will build several wells for fresh water and take well-drilling equipment to seed a local effort that will allow villagers to drill their own wells in additional remote areas.  Sixteen of the Veronis’ children and grandchildren are taking part in the Africa project that will also build a small school.  Several grandchildren will help lead a bible camp for 250 children in the village of Chavogere where in 1988 Fr. Alexander Veronis and his wife, Pearl, had led a 25 member summer mission team that built an Orthodox Medical Clinic. At that time, the village had no running water, no electricity, no paved roads, no bus stop, no school, no clinic, and no established church community.  

It is amazing how God has worked in this village since the original mission trip.  At that time there was only one drinking water source three miles away and the “Mammas” from the village would carry five-gallon buckets on their heads every day…even more water was needed for cooking and daily baths for their American guests.  Participants wrote about the long hard work of building the clinic from handmade cinder blocks to scaffolding, hauling water from a local river to mix cement for mortar, setting windows and doors and building a roof. At the same time, a team of two doctors and four nurses treated over 300 people daily. When the Clinic was finished in six weeks, the villagers held their first Liturgy in the completed clinic. 

Fr. Veronis and Pearl remember distinctly how the village Chief kept shaking his head and asking why a group of foreigners would come and help them, as poor as they were.  But that’s when God works best in everyone’s hearts!!  The church mission team experienced such extravagant hospitality in return. Many natives walked barefoot for up to five miles from neighboring villages on hazardous roads to attend worship…and even got there early!!  And the mission workers were deeply moved by having hundreds serenade them in Swahili, bearing baskets of fruits and vegetables plus one chicken and one goat….from their meager provisions.  And, the dancing and worship was so powerful, genuinely exciting, and humbling. 

In the intervening years, the Orthodox Christian Mission Center has sponsored additional teams to the same remote area.  Chavogere now has nurses’ quarters, a church, and a high school.  The community is now thriving and growing and educating their children.  There is employment and opportunity no one could have dreamed of twenty years ago – EXCEPT GOD!!

Look what Love can do – it changes the world one village at a time.  And, even more dramatic – the real change is in human hearts as they partner to “make disciples of all nations”.

One of my favorite memories of my grandma was eating her apple povitica right out of the oven. Cold the next morning was good too. Povitica is a delicious apple dessert made with paper thin pastry and thinly sliced apples rolled up like a log and then sliced after baking.  The recipe was passed down through generations in my family and was brought with them when they immigrated to the United States from Croatia in the late 1800s. 

She made the dish with love and wanted my cousins, brother and myself to know about our heritage.  She always made traditional Croatian dishes, spoke the language and taught us about life and culture. When I was about ten my grandma taught me how to make the dish.  It was one of those recipes that was measured in handfuls and pinches not cups and teaspoons.  It also required a lot of practice.  My dough was never as thin or as tender as hers.

I think back to those days in the kitchen with the smell of cinnamon and apples baking in the oven and realize the important lessons I learned. Lessons about what it means to be so desperate to immigrate to a country where you don’t know anyone or anything about the people, the culture or the language. The willingness to travel thousands of miles from your home in hopes that the place you arrive will offer safety and a way to care for your family. 

Every time I have the opportunity to meet one of the asylum seekers in Phoenix or to learn about their struggles to find safety for their family, I think of my great-grandparents traveling to America looking for a better life.

Unless you are a Native American, we all came to America to escape persecution, find safety, more jobs, better health care, and many other legitimate reasons. We are a country of immigrants and it is a part of our DNA as a nation to welcome the stranger because at some point or another our families were the stranger. 

I don’t claim to know the answer to our immigration challenges.  They are complicated. But what I do know is that each person who crosses the border seeking asylum is doing it for the same reasons my great-grandparents did.  I know that they deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and love.  I say that because that is how I hope my family was treated when they stepped onto American soil.  I hope that whatever trauma they suffered could be set aside because individuals welcomed them to their new home with open arms. 

My grandma loved America.  The 4th of July was her favorite holiday (after Christmas and Easter of course) because it reminds us how important it is to remember where you came from and how lucky we are to be in this country where our families are safe, have shelter and food to eat. 

I think it is time I pulled out my grandma’s recipe for apple povitica and gather in community to tell our family stories of how we got to this place.  I would love to hear your family’s story. Maybe that will help us better understand the plight of these individuals seeking asylum.

Please pray for them.  Just because we don’t see any news cycles about them doesn’t mean their situation has gone away, thousands of people wait on the border looking for a place of safety. I promise you they wouldn’t be living in this difficult situation if they weren’t desperate.  As I mentioned earlier, immigration is complicated but humanity is not. Welcome in the stranger and you might see your ancestor looking back at your smiling face, grateful for a place to call home. 

“I’m hungry,” the little boy announced, right in the middle of the children’s sermon. The startling proclamation brought an unexpected but hearty burst of laughter from the congregation.

The question on the table was, “If God were to write a letter to you, what words might you hear?” 

One kid said, “Don’t be bad.” And when prompted to say a little more, he said, “Be good.”

One kid said, “Love one another.”  

And then, after what seemed an interminable silence, a little boy stood up, walked toward me and said, “I”m hungry.”  When the laughter died down, I took him by the hand, and held it through the rest of the children’s sermon, thinking, “How do I respond to such a clear proclamation?”

Hindsight is so clear. Afterwards I thought that I should have said, “Me too! Let’s get out of here and get some lunch.”  Or perhaps a more theological response would have been better: “We’re all hungry. We all are longing for something. And here in God’s sanctuary, gathered with God’s people in worship, we will feast on the Word of God!”  I went to seminary after all, and every answer should have a theological dimension. Shouldn’t it?

But what if God wrote a letter to us, and all it said was, “I’m hungry”?  

We might first think, “This isn’t our God.  Our God doesn’t require food like one of the pagan idols of old. Scripture clearly tells us: 

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

    says the Lord;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

    and the fat of fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

    or of lambs, or of goats. (Isaiah 1:11)

Someone else might say, “I know you don’t want food, God. What you’re hungry for is a contrite heart.” 

Other people might say, “I hear you, God! I know you are hungry for justice! We are too!”

Some erudite theologian might say, “God is impassible. God is not moved by passions, strong emotions, or suffering, To say that God hungers cannot be taken literally. It is a metaphor for our own belief in lack that is strongly projected onto Divine Being.”  Huh?

And in the midst of it all, a boy stands there, interrupting the decent and orderly worship service, resounding for all to hear with, “I’m hungry.”  

And we are reminded that the needs of the world stand before us. We can engage in deeply theological and scriptural reasoning that keep us from responding directly and in the moment, but the world will still be declaring, “I’m hungry.” 

Jesus tells his disciples, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35)

And his disciples asked, “Lord, when did we do this? When were you hungry?” 

Jesus reminded them, “Whenever you cared for the least of these, you cared for me.”  

Whenever we feed another, we feed Jesus.

I am grateful that Pinnacle is a community of people who feed others in body, mind, and spirit, and in such feeding we sit at the table and commune with God.