Masks

Authors of novels sometimes say that after they have started writing, a character runs away with the story and changes it completely. This usually doesn’t happen to me, though occasionally, I’ll be following one topic, and details from a completely different one will take over. Then I have two choices. (I don’t consider plunking two topics next to each other without any bridge an option. Or not having a topic. That’s out.) So I can either think up a way to connect the two topics (I’m the Queen of Connections) or delete the bits of the first topic and explore the second.

Today I thought I was still writing about controversy, but I wasn’t. I was writing about… (had to change this sentence five times)…how we fall back on body language to communicate when words fail. I am expert on this topic because I watched all three seasons of Lie to Me and read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Actually, I miss way too much, just sailing through people’s day without noticing their internal weather. I’m better at noticing people’s feelings when I’m teaching. Do I detect enthusiasm? I ramp things up. Do I detect boredom? I move on immediately. Boredom is anathema.

Yesterday…(with my Syrian friends, “yesterday” is short hand--or synecdoche--for any time in the past. If you mean a long time ago, you add circling gestures and “yesterdays.”). So, yesterday, I met another Syrian family who has just arrived in Canada and has moved in a couple floors above Manal. They served me the thickest coffee I’ve ever tasted in a tiny cup and saucer and vanilla pudding (sweet milk is how it got translated). We invited them down for our English lesson, so my class swelled from one to six. We laughed a lot. We stood on chairs, sat on walls, turned left, turned right, touched toes, and picked out colors. Beige is “beige” in both languages. I let my guard down, sat on the floor, and behaved downright silli-ly to keep the game going.

While we worked, I was always watching the faces of my new students, because it was the only way I could tell how they felt. Body language. Micro-expressions. They knew no English. I think I feel so drawn to these Syrians because they are so immediately hospitable and expressive, like many of my Mexican friends. It makes them easier to read, easier to teach. (Maybe. They mask displeasure with guests, too.) Not all cultures are expressive, though, and I need to guard myself against grading them on that. (Would you want your introverted child graded on expressiveness?) I especially noticed Jala’s expressions. She’s the mom. She had such an intent look on her face, her forehead slightly furrowed. And when I’d address her, she’d tilt her head slightly to one side and down, a regal gesture of approbation. I could teach people like this forever. It’s rarely me that stops the lesson but bright-eyed Manal laughing and insisting, “Break, break.” She holds her head to show how full it is of learning. She would never let on if she were bored.

I think I understand my friends well. But who knows. Even simple gestures (“Go. Come.”) can be misunderstood across cultures. I remember when our friend Roland first came to visit us in Guerrero years ago. He had asked to stay in a Mixtec home, and this was his first night. We had just dropped him off. An hour later, he came to the house red-faced and upset. “They have asked me to leave!” he insisted. We doubted that, wondering, “How do you know?” He said they had gestured him to be gone, out into the dark, and that he could read people’s gestures as well as anyone. He was utterly certain of their intentions.

We traipsed over to the home of the Mixtec family, our neighbors at the time, and we tried to solve the mystery. This is what had happened: Roland had said, in Spanish, that he wanted to shower. But what the family heard was him asking for the bath-room. They had no bath-room. They bathed out in the open next to the open water tank and did their other business in the field across the road. So they gestured away from the house, into the dark, toward the field across the street. He misunderstood.

He learned, though, and went back to sleep in their home. He eventually married their daughter. And I have learned, too, reverting to childlike silliness to get a word across. Cross-cultural communication is a gift of God to keep us young and childlike and aware of our ignorance.

Wikipedia

Hot topic III

God in Arabic (Wikipedia)

     

When Manal and I try to communicate, most of what we say gets lost. The other day I saw her try out a new app that uses the camera on the phone like a magnifying glass, translating the words right onto the screen as you move the phone over them. It didn’t work all that well. Sigh. Google Translate seems to help me out more than it does her. Maybe there is more effort invested in getting it right from English to Arabic than the other way around. Or maybe, since I’ve learned several languages before, I have experience in breaking one idea down into small, simple phrases that Google can handle more easily. Manal is learning how to do this, too—keeping it simple. At first she spoke entire paragraphs into the Translator, and it spoke back gibberish. Now we use a kind of short hand, relying on the few words we know in each other’s languages, and our phones, to talk about all kinds of things. Today I found it fun that when I met her friend Wofa, Manal was translating my questions to her and relaying her answers (some of them, anyway). But still, much was lost. 

Where I live in Oaxaca, I know many of the translator teams that work hard at getting the Bible published into the 300+ languages of Mexico. I help teach their kids so that they are freed up to do their job instead of having to home school. I am happy to support them in this way, each of us using our own gift to help one another get the job done. These translator teams wrestle and consult and pray over their decisions about what words to use to communicate God’s truth effectively and accurately in Indian languages. It is hard work, and sometimes they disagree on the correct terms. Sometimes they go back and make revisions. While I am analyzing literature with their kids in the classroom, trying to decipher the authors’ intentions, trying to get at the true meaning of the scenes and images, their parents are doing the same thing with the Bible. God blesses both jobs.

One of the articles that I read in the Christianity Today bulletin about the question “Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?” fascinated me with some details about how this same translation process works when the Bible is written in Arabic in other countries. Shortened a bit, Jay Travis, a missionary and scholar, says:

Telling Muslims that we worship different Gods makes it nearly impossible to use the dozens of Bible translations available that use the term Allah. When Muslims find the name Allah there, ah, they breathe an immediate sigh of relief! Many Bible translations over the centuries have used the name Allah for God. All translations in Arabic dating back to the 9th century used Allah, and this name is still on the lips of millions of Arabic-speaking Christians today. Arabic-speaking Christians, in fact, used the name Allah centuries before the dawn of Islam, as did Arabic-speaking Jews, saying it was the Arabic form of the Aramaic word for God. (It is interesting to note that when Jews translated the OT from Hebrew into Arabic in the 10th century, they used the name Allah). These facts indicate that Allah can be seen as simply the common word for God in the Arabic language. Similarly, translations in Indonesian and Malaysian beginning with the first Malay Scripture portions in the early 1600s have always used Allah. Over thirty languages, counting over 100 million believers, have Bibles today that use the name Allah for God.

Interestingly, the mosque here in St Catharines uses the word God in the lettering of the Shahada on its wall. On the other hand in Malaysia, Christians are forbidden to use the word Allah in their literature because the government believes this facilitates conversion. If I’m forced to choose a side on the question (like I said before, it’s not a helpful question), it’s the side of those 100 million believers using the word Allah for God, and the seekers that sigh with relief that God lives in the Christian Scriptures. They have far more at stake. For now, relying on the little experience and evidence I have, I defer to them. 

While we argue over the translation of God's name, may he not be one of the things that gets lost in the process.

Hot Topic II

Today when I went to give Manal her English class, she met me at the door in her floor-length coat, signaling to me that she was leaving the house (reminding me of the flexibility of schedules in Mexico). With her was another Syrian woman named Wofa, who knew even less English than Manal and has only been in Canada a week (I think). They invited me shopping (at the thrift store next door), and I was able to get them my senior discount J. This time Manal was brave enough to try the fitting room, and I stood guard at the door. I now know two Syrian women and two Algerian women. I’m loving it.

Manal told me she was fasting. She said it was giving her a headache. Maybe she was trying to explain why there would be no English class that day. I asked if it was Ramadan, and she and Wofa looked surprised and laughed. After conferring on the right word, they said together, “Summer.” Ok, so not Ramadan. “Why?” I asked. She tried to get it straight on Google Translate and kept saying, “No, no, no,” and finally gave up. So I still don’t know why. It’s today’s mystery. There are so many reasons that communication just breaks down even among friends. Imagine what happens during a controversy.

Like the question that has caused such a furor in the news lately: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? I mentioned that I had read a bulletin by Christianity Today with many contributors who gave their insight on the issue. The consensus was this is not a helpful question. It’s divisive. The real answer is, “Well, it depends.” Because although you might be asking one question, someone else might be answering another completely different one, and you might end up judging one another.

If you really mean to ask, “Do all roads lead to God?” Of course, the answer is no. Epistemologically, we are not talking about the same God. The Christian God is vastly different from the Muslim because our knowledge about him comes through the Incarnation. But if you mean to ask an ontological question, “Is there one God,” the answer is yes, because neither religion allows for there to be any more than One God. The God of the Muslims is an omnipotent, benevolent, and wise Creator, just as the God of the Christians, and there can’t be two of those. In terms of existence, we are both referring to one thing.

Here’s an example. You and your four year old son see something flying through the air. You think it is a hang glider. Your son thinks it’s superman. But both of you agree that there was something up there. Paul claims that people can derive some qualities of God from his creation and even referred to him as the “Unknown God.” This awareness people have of the One True God should not throw us for a loop but encourage us that God reveals himself as he wills. It’s up to us to show that what they are seeing is not “Superman.”

More on this later. Meanwhile, when someone brings up the controversy, ask yourself: which question is being asked? Ontological? Epistemological? Are you certain? There’s the real question.

Hot topic I

Operation Castle: Wikipedia

As I did my homework for my BSF study on Revelation 15 and 16 tonight, my observation was that Biblical scholars have come to some very different conclusions about what things mean in Revelation. My notes on Babylon and the 144,000 repeat the phrase, “This could mean…or…or…” Somehow I found this comforting. Even the experts are still learning, still debating, still changing their minds. I am free to look at the evidence and come to my own conclusions.

I was at a friend’s house, and I noticed the various magazines laid down on the coffee table. I find magazines (and books, especially comic books) at friends’ houses irresistible, especially if they focus on news or ideas rather than recipes and people, though I’m curious about those, too. The magazine was Decision, and as I flipped through it, I noticed an article on a current hot topic I’m interested in because it relates so much to cross-cultural mission. I skimmed through the article (in a break in the conversation; tea was being made or something, and I can skim fast), and took note of the categorical answer the contributor gave to the issue. He was the president of a Southern Baptist seminary. He has not been to my BSF class.

Earlier in the day, I had received an email bulletin put out by Christianity Today dealing with the exact same hot topic. The bulletin, however, approached the topic quite differently. It reminded me more of my BSF notes. It had drawn opinions from some thirty contributors, all of whom had some experience with the topic. Some were Biblical scholars and seminary profs. Some were missionaries or heads of missionary organizations. Some worked in Bible translation. Some were Christians who had come out of another religion. All of them had wrestled with this controversy and cared deeply about mission, but they certainly did not all agree. As I read through the articles, I began to form my own opinion based on what they were saying and my own experience. My opinion will put me at odds with some of the contributors and in agreement with others. I have a feeling that the contributors of that bulletin would be ok with that.

Before I tell you what the topic is, I need to introduce two terms that helped me navigate the controversy. Ontology refers to whether something exists or not. Anselm in 1078 gave Christianity its most famous ontological argument for the existence of God, which goes something like this: God is the greatest “thing” that can ever be imagined. Even atheists can imagine God, whether they believe in Him or not. But He has to exist, because a real God would always surpass the imaginary God in the atheist’s mind.  Later philosophers refuted this argument in several ways: for example by claiming that existence doesn’t imply superiority (hmm. I’ll take existence, thank you very much. And believe me; I had a choice).  Notice we aren’t saying much about what we know about God.

Epistemology refers to how we know things, how we arrive at our beliefs about God, for example. Epistemologically, all the religions of the world say very different things. Christians rightfully claim you can’t know God without knowing His Son as Lord.

The problem with the controversial question covered in the two magazines I read is that although it is a simple yes/no question, it doesn’t have a simple answer. It has two answers, one ontological and the other epistemological, and these answers contradict each other. You get yes or no, depending on what you are really asking.

More on this later. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about how questions that seem so straight forward can produce different answers when you enter new cultures, because what you think you are saying isn’t what people in other cultures are actually hearing. How do we help people realize this and relax around the paradox?

Family Day

Rashad was in fine form, motioning us all into his small apartment, “Welcome! Welcome,” and cracking jokes as much as is possible if you only know six words in English (makes me think he’d be full of fun and jokes if I spoke his language). He was pleased as punch to have all of us there in his home on Family Day. We, the twelve people in his support group are his new family, and he was almost giddy with pleasure that we were all gathered together for a family meal.

“Sit down, sit down!” he insisted. He had a small kitchen table, but that wasn’t where we would eat. He gestured toward cushions on the living room floor where Manal had set out places for all of us on two plastic tablecloths laid on the carpet, using paper plates and cups. One cup held forks, for those who needed them. It reminded me of Mixtec meals that you eat by using your tortilla as a spoon. Syrians use pita bread the same way. Some of us had trouble getting down on the floor with our creaky knees, and we admired the nimbleness of our hosts. Rashad had insisted this was to be a Syrian meal and didn’t allow any of us to bring a thing. This was his way of saying thank you.

Manal had been cooking since the day before and the spread was lavish and artfully arranged. We had cigar-looking things wrapped in grape leaves and filled with rice and lamb (I think). We had chicken and cashews served over seasoned rice baked in yogurt. We had another chicken dish with noodles. We had what looked like samosas but weren’t called that in Arabic (sorry, Rashad kept telling us the Arabic words and we kept saying them and forgetting them, saying them and forgetting them. I know that is what it feels like to them as they try to learn our language. Reminded me of learning Mixtec. I understand! One world I am teaching Manal is "FRUSTRATED!") We had fritters and salad and fruit and drumsticks. We ate well, every bite delicious. There was much left over, and Rashad suggested everyone come back the next day for more.

It was the first time I’d seen Manal dressed up. She wore a floor-length sun dress over a long-sleeved sweater and an azure scarf that set off her black eyes. As she brought out tray after tray, insisting we eat more and still more, I admired her willing, servant heart. I was warmed by her gracious hospitality.

The group requested a prayer over a meal, and in English, we blessed it in Jesus’ name. Rashad was fine with that. “Messenger of Peace,” Rashad calls our Jesus, our Prince of Peace. In times like these I am filled with gratitude that my Prince stands for peace even for those who don’t know him as Lord. I’m also grateful that while my own family has been halved and sent along their way, (how I miss them!) God has given me this new one to love for a while here in Canada. God brought this orphaned family here to join me in my own exile.

Family Day is not a Canadian invention.

Ghosts

Henry Fuseli 1780

“Oh, my prophetic soul.” This is what Hamlet cries out when he sees the Ghost, his father, who had been murdered by his own brother. Hamlet had had his suspicions about the guy, and now his nastiest ones were confirmed. He’s torn up inside, and when he sees his uncle kneeling in the chapel, he wants to run him through right then and there. But he doesn’t. Because he isn’t content with seeing justice served. No, he wants punishment. He wants his uncle to burn in hell. So he waits. And because he chooses revenge, he brings his whole world down around his ears. He’s responsible for the death of his girlfriend, her father, her brother, his own mother, and finally, his uncle. And the kingdom is lost. Sure, he gets his revenge in the end, but at what cost. Everyone close to him dies. Innocents die. As Shakespeare well knew, “If you live by the sword, you’ll die by it.”

In these days of wars and rumors of wars, we have ghosts walking among us. They wear the faces of those who have died, and they call out to us “hard things.” They mean to have blood, and they provoke us to violence toward those who have done nothing. And they are Christian.

“End those people before they walk in!” they cry. “Holy War!” And they appeal (just as Paul said they would)  to “Peace and security.”  

We have all seen these ghosts. And because they wear the faces of people familiar to us, wearing our skin and speaking our language, we are seduced. We are powerless to resist them. There is only one voice that counters, but we can’t bear it.  The message is too hard.

Today I was invited into the home of Mohammad, an Algerian who has lived in Canada with his family for twelve years. He was the security guard at a pizza place near where my Syrian friends live (four year old Hammudi thinks that all pizza is called pizza pizza). When one of our group went there to order pizza, she met him, and he offered to help the family with translation and anything else he could, even finding Rashad a job. The next time she went to order pizza there, he paid for the entire order before she got there, drinks included. He treated us all, and we hadn’t even met. When I entered his home today, his wife had snacks and drinks on the table. They have their own Arabic version of “mi casa es su casa,” so I now have a home in Canada where Muslim Algerians welcome me. At one point in our conversation, I must have said something that he especially agreed with, because he grabbed my hand in both of his and said, “Yes, sister.” I was startled, since Rashad won’t shake hands with women. Maybe my surprise showed, so Mohammed added quickly, “We are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.”  And so we are.

Mohammad’s daughter is 26 and suffers from some unpronounceable disease that causes pain even when she breathes. She wants to go to college, but she can’t leave the house to ride in a car.  What do you say to someone with such suffering? “I will pray for you,” I said. And here is my prayer: “God, heal Fatima from this disease. And may she know you did, for love.” She wore a long red velvet gown, and since she’s unmarried, she had her hair down. She has enormous black eyes, and she translated from Arabic to English for me when the group was laughing because Rashad had played a joke on me, getting me to say nonsense that tickled them. She was eager to help. The whole family was. “Call me anytime,” Mohammed said. “I can go to the apartment if they need me.”

I am friends with two Muslim families. Syria and Algeria live in my back yard. They do not fill me with foreboding. They cheer me. They dispel ghosts.

Come dispel your ghosts with me.

Lent

I guess even cancer treatment can become routine. Another round in the chemo lounge. Check. (Three to go, yay!) Procedure on the heart. Check. Appointment made with rheumatologist. Check. Appointment made with surgeon. Check. (Apparently he’s a plastic surgeon. Why in the world plastic? That sounds like I’m trying to recycle something, maybe my nose or chin or something, instead of retrieve some lost fingers.) Tickets bought to go to Mexico for a week of training Mexican missionaries and return in time for the next treatment. Check. Visit to Dr Blue and Brown. Check. ((I did the unthinkable this time. When he said both, “I’ve never seen such a thing before,” and “You’re asking me questions outside my area of expertise” (Canadian doctors actually say such things), I couldn’t restrain myself and burst out with, “Doc, you know all those movies where someone dies and someone else spends the entire movie trying to find out how it happened, because she just wants to know why? Well, I might not be able to find a solution to this condition, but at least I want to understand why!” He stared at me for a bit. Patients don’t usually analyze movies around him, I’m sure. Can you just imagine him going home to Mrs. Blue and Brown that night? “Dear, you’ll never guess what happened to me at the office today. This old lady actually started talking about movies!”)) (Double parentheses. Always wanted to do that.) Check. Check.

You know, even this can become routine, and I can let it define me, absorb me, weigh on me. In fact, I don’t really see any way to avoid this from happening.  It just does, and I can’t control it. I’m just not that tough.

Except that it’s Lent. In our parents’ era, evangelicals didn’t celebrate Lent. Too Catholic. In fact, evangelicals in Mexico don’t celebrate Lent. Many of them don’t even celebrate Easter Sunday itself because they think, somehow, Catholics invented it. But in our day, many evangelicals have found value in setting aside a time every year to reflect on the Passion of Christ and how it has revolutionized our lives. Some of them (like Former Hostess Mom) give 40 days of thanksgiving. Others (like Husband) fast from some preference like cake or coffee to remind themselves of Jesus’ sacrifice.

And when you look at Jesus, the way he lived, the way he died, the way he just couldn’t stay dead, things don’t stay the same. They don’t stay where you put them. They shift. And where before you looked up to see only a blank wall blocking your vision, now you see sky, light, eternity.

In George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie, Curdie is given the gift to feel a person’s soul by touching their hands. In a flash of insight, he knows whether the person is growing pure or beastly inside. Lent can bring this flash of insight, a sixth sensing of passion and glory. Somewhere in these 40 days, may the Lenten season be this flash to you.

Two thousand years ago, a man hung on a cross. At the hour of noon, the world went dark. The ground shook. The rocks split. The tombs opened. Nature itself put its hand over its face and screamed in horror. How could the universe know this was all birth pangs?

Let us live the suspense of these day. Peer through the darkness. Wait for that first morning light.

Idiopathic

Robert and I like detective shows, especially if they are English (Foyle) or Swedish (Wallander) or Scottish (Rebus) or something. What I thought of today was how much doctors are like detectives. You give them the clues the best you can, and they find the culprit. Often the crimes are as irreversible in either field. There’s no happy ending, and you have to be satisfied with just knowing “why.”

Today my family doctor was stumped and told me he’s never seen such a thing. The x-ray technician said the same thing (after he gave me heck for walking into his room texting on my phone.) He also said I was old. This happened because I asked why there is a lead apron on the machine only from the waist down. He said this is because it protects your reproductive organs. “Not that I am going to be having a baby,” I said. “No,” he said. “When you’re old…”

I looked at him. His eyes widened. “Not that you’re old,” he said, “I’m your age.” “How do you know my age?” I demanded. “I saw your chart,” he said. “I look at the ages of all the women who come in here.” Hmmm. See what happens when you turn 55?  

So the textbook symptoms for trigger finger (which I now have in all my fingers) are that your fingers joints lock up in a closed position, and when you use your other hand to force them open, they “click.”  It’s not arthritis. “They” don’t really know what it is. So if eight of your fingers start triggering pretty much all at the same time after chemo, what would be your guess when something goes wrong with the other two? What would be your guess about the connection between trigger finger and chemo? Yes. Of course. That is my guess, too. I can play the detective if I have to.

The problem is that, of course, my thumbs don’t show the textbook symptoms. They are locked open. The first person I saw was my doctor’s intern. She actually opened her medical data base to research the situation. (I’d love to have that password!) “So what causes trigger finger anyway?” I asked her. She started to explain the bit about the tendon getting stuck in the sheath… “Yes, I know that, but what causes it? What causes trigger finger?” Tap, tap, tap on the keys. (I’m making this poor intern learn something. I am a teacher, even in the patient’s chair. Yay!) She looks up. “Oh, it’s idiopathic.” Right. Did she just say, “idiopathic?” “And what is that,” I ask. I am making her day, I’m sure. Doctors, never turn your intern who has access to a data base over to a teacher. “It means the cause is unknown. It just happens.” Right. It just happens. In other words, stump the doctor. “Motiveless,” a detective would say. I had a very difficult time biting my tongue at that point. I felt like a prime witness not being listened to. “It’s the CHEMO!” I said. “Isn’t that obvious?”

So the intern called in the doctor. “Not the textbook symptoms for trigger finger,” he said, “Maybe it’s a kind of paralysis,” he said, and he checked for neuropathy, running his finger down the inside of my hands. “No problem there.” (I already knew that. See, I actually know something. I have experience. I have neuropathy in my feet.) He sent me to meet the x-ray guy my own age. As I got up to leave, I tried to protest that it had to be trigger finger, because my fingers kind of lock open like my thumbs are doing, just not so bad, “And, Doctor, I just went to see my Dad in Florida, and he told me he had frozen thumbs, and “they” did surgery on them, (Dad, when?!!!!) and now he’s fine, and his fingers had locked open just like mine.” Sorry, are you following my argument here? Because the doctor wasn’t. He’s a kind man, and I wouldn’t trade him, but I could hear the impatience when he interrupted me. My father, see, had nothing to do with this.

Oh, but I know. I may not be using the right words, but I know. And he’s not listening.

It's frustrating when the guys with the titles and data bases stop detecting, stop listening.

And I'm not just talking about doctors.

Peripheral vision

Wikimedia

So there I was, Sunday afternoon, along with one hundred million other watchers, waiting for the Superbowl to start. The host family had left delicious chili warming in the crockpot, so you could get up and serve yourself supper any time you wanted. Daughter made this awesome spinach dip (Robert and I both wondered how that spinach came out so perfectly square in the bowl. We’d never seen frozen squares of spinach before. So practical). There were corn chips to munch on, and that sour cream/salsa/cheese dip that you can just keep eating forever. The mom gave us all those questionnaires to fill out before the game. Who will win? What will the score be? (My guess was only off by one point! Should have gambled on that one! Here’s a question. Even if you have an inkling the other team will win, do you still gamble on your own favorites out of loyalty? Loyalty to whom, really?) How many safeties? (Safeties? What are those?) And what songs does Cold Play even sing, and how would I know what color Beyonce’s boots could be. Are they always black? Because I guessed red. Unfortunately that was Lady Gaga. Did you happen to notice eyeshadow? I want some of that! The guesses were made, the couches were soft and full of people, and the game was on.

Big theme for the Superbowl: “Football is family.” All those Superbowl kids from throughout the years singing out their birthright. And I suppose it is. Family. It was for us in that living room, me snuggled next to a husband who is trying to have a conversation with the other dad, and the other family in its entirety watching together. I guess it was fun to try and follow the plays and figure out who passed to whom, and why flags flew, and why people kept walking on and off the field. It was as tricky and suspenseful as any storyline I’d tackled recently. And I felt sorry for those poor quarterbacks when they got the ball slapped right out of their hands, and for the poor guys (probably some other kind of “back”) who kept reaching, reaching, reaching…and failed. I groaned with the crowds, whatever the team was. I felt sorry for the guys that got their necks twisted around when people pulled on their face guards and for the ones that limped off the field after probably getting “concussed.” I doubt that is what the game was about, but I couldn’t help that. I saw what I saw and felt what I felt. Reminds me of Stargirl.

Remember her? She’s one of my favorite characters in literature, a creation of Jerry Spinelli (along with Maniac Magee). I was just reading about him: Did you know that at 16, when he started to write (and Maniac started to run) he went to a football game, and when his team won a big game, and everyone else went cheering through the streets, he went home to write about it? Like me. Anyway, Stargirl joins the Cheering Squad at her school and entertains the entire crowd with her antics, but unfortunately, she can’t just cheer for her own team. She cheers the losers, and the ones that get broken on the field, and she definitely cheers the “wrong” side. Read the book to see what happens next. I always tell my class Stargirl is a Jesus figure. They cock their heads and wrinkle their eyebrows at me.

See, there’s always more than just the game. And maybe that’s what we forget most often and can least afford to forget. After the game, I saw all these posts about all the peripheral issues haunting the Superbowl. You know, the ticket prices. The salaries. The corporate profits. The homeless displaced and ignored again. The lifestyles and adulation. The women and children brought in the area to service so much testosterone. Exactly how much of the Superbowl is about family, really? I found out people boycott the event to make a statement. I guess I’ve kind of done that all my life. Just now taking a peep to see if I was right, and finding it’s a mixed bag.

I like stories. I like drama and excellence and shows. I like to see what humans are capable of accomplishing. We were made for splendor and awe. But it’s never that simple, is it, as Stargirl well knew. Show can be seductive, too, like sex. Isn’t that American politics in a nutshell right now?

Jacques Bertaux 1793

There’s this great scene in Tale of Two Cities where Defarge takes the Mender of Roads to see the king. The peasant is dazzled by the spectacle and cheers, “Long live the king.” He eats it up. Never has he seen such a thing in his life, and he loves the show. Defarge holds him by the collar to keep him from “flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces.” (Does this sound like any fans you know?) Defarge is pleased because, as he says, “You make these fools believe that it will last forever.”  Remember, it’s the eve of the Revolution. Madame Defarge comments with utter sarcasm, "You would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?" The Mender is oblivious to everything that is happening behind the scenes in the Royal Palace. “I think so,” he says. In his day, the spectacle was as seductive as a Superbowl.

I ask God for good peripheral vision.

Fundamentalists

We hear so much about fundamentalist Muslim groups in these days. We see a lot in the news about how they fight for Islam to return to a purer, simpler state. But up until recently, the only fundamentalists I’d ever heard about were…us. The fundamentalist Christians. The ones who hung on to an orthodox faith, a belief in a risen Christ who was born of a virgin and did the miracles his disciples claimed he did. But I keep wondering, why are we called fundamentalists like those others who strap bombs to their chests and throw planes into buildings? How can we share this name? I have to admit, it makes me uneasy. What do I share with fundamentalist Muslims who provoke such hatred in my country? Is it that we are both so confident that what we believe is true? Is it that we would die for our faith? Is it that we struggle to maintain orthodoxy in these modern times? This has been bothering me, and Robert and I have gone round and round.

I have been reading a book that gives some explanation. Let me give you some of its ideas and see what you think. Keep in mind that for me Jesus is IT. Period.

Here goes: According to my book, fundamentalism is not a timeless component of this or that religion but a reaction to a perceived threat. So it’s a modern phenomenon. Up until the modern age, people didn’t question their religions. These just were. The book gives this great example of how a tradition can be so taken for granted at one time.  Two queens, Victoria and Eugenie (Empress of France but not born into aristocracy) were at an opera together. They were both regal in their bearing. When Eugenie went to sit down after accepting people’s applause, she looked behind her to see that the chair was there. Victoria did not. She just knew.

What the author says is that in the Modern Age, we still believe the chair (tradition) of religion should be there, but we can no longer take it for granted in our society. Now we have to make sure. Fundamentalism is an attempt to get that taken-for-grantedness back, an attempt to take society back to that golden era when the “state” chair (religion) was never questioned. Of course this is impossible, but fundamentalists are the ones who keep longing, who keep trying and trying.

To do this, fundamentalists make rules for their constituents. First, fundamentalists must have no significant interaction with outsiders because these might alter their view a shade or shake their certainty. Second, fundamentalists allow no doubt. You have to be sure. You must be absolutely confident you are right and not in any need of insight from people outside your tradition. If you start listening or questioning, it means your tradition can't be that taken-for-granted "chair." You see this in fundamentalist Muslim groups. They are fanatically right, and they don’t care to talk to you about it. You are a threat and should be eliminated. Anyone who doubts or questions is a threat and should be taken care of. Violence is an option. "Shoot them before they shoot us."

We condemn this behavior in Muslim terrorists. But when I watch the news, I sure see the same seeds of hatred and violence being sown in our own soil.  Even among Christians.  Are we afraid Jesus will lose ground? Is he only Lord of the past?

I am utterly committed to Jesus as my risen Lord and Savior. I love his miracles and words. I am a missionary for life wherever I happen to live. But I sure don't want to be counted as a fundamentalist if the fruit is such anger, judgment, violence, deafness, isolation, fear, longing for the past, and the idolatry of trusting my own certainty. Somehow it just doesn’t square. I am ashamed.

Room

And the winner of the Moving to Oz Award goes to........ ........Room!  What I love about this movie is that even though the circumstances are horrifying, the focus of the movie is on life, not death or horror. It would remind you of Life is Beautiful, where Roberto, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, is sent to a Nazi concentration camp with his son, and he uses his imagination to build a fantasy world, a safe culture, for his son, shielding him from the horrors going on around him. He shifts his son to Oz. The little guy believes it’s all a game. That movie won three Academy Awards. My guess is that Room will be well awarded, too.

In Room, the mother builds a life for her five year-old son in the tiny room where they are imprisoned, filling his life with the characters that he greets every morning (“Good morning, Sink. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Rug.” If you are a mom, you are hearing, “Goodnight, Moon.”) She educates him, plays with him, entertains him, and shields him from the evil she suffers. Like Roberto, she creates a safe culture for her son. I think that is the draw of the movie, being able to watch a brave young woman move her son out of her own personal hell to Oz, being able to look in on the culture she creates for him, as if we were foreigners peeking into her Room from the skylight above. The movie makes this alien culture as rich and intriguing as any exotic destination by letting us see it through Jack’s eyes, for whom this 12 foot square room, so familiar, so mundane, is his entire world. The book dwells far more than the movie on the rich world the mom weaves for her son, though she’s not the clown that Roberto is, and not always so cheerful. She has her Gone Days, when her eyes go blank, and Jack is left on his own. She’s more vulnerable, her courage more palpable. Modern audiences expect more rounded characters, even flawed one. Just watch the news.

Of course, we are all rounded characters, flawed, failing. We are all called to create another culture in the “Room” we live in. This is an act of faith. It is the Kingdom of God. It’s invisible like the wind in the trees, but it is a true story we tell to those around of us of the goodness of God. How can we notice “Sink” and “Chair” and “Rug” today? How can we look up at Skylight and wonder at what “Outside” holds? Perhaps the high point of the movie for me is when the Mom struggles to persuade Jack that there really is a world Outside bigger than Room and just as Real. When he was four, she had taught him that nothing he saw on the television was real. Only what he saw around him was Real. But now that he was five, he was ready to be taught the truth. That there really are Dogs and Cats beyond the fuzzy television screen’s projections. Jack rejects the idea at first. It’s mind boggling. But then he succumbs to the beauty of the idea and trusts her and believes. He matures. 

This step of faith is necessary for their escape from evil. Faith in God is always a step of maturity.

Lewis wrote about this process of maturing toward faith in his own life in the book Surprised by Joy. You have to be a child to go through it. You have to be reborn. You have to take it on trust. You have to take the scraps of evidence, like the brown leaf fallen on the skylight (“But tree leaves are green, Mom”) and run with them, and that takes courage because Room, here, is so much more real than that brown leaf there, Outside. No matter how obvious it seems to us, no matter how confidently we believe in Outside, that isn’t proof enough. It always takes faith.

What kind of Outside do we paint for those around us? How do we teach them to escape? How do we prepare them to appreciate Outside by first teaching them to appreciate Room? How do we make Outside convincing when they are persuaded that Room is all there is? How do we teach them what is truly Real?

And that’s why my kids don’t take me to the movies. “Mom, will you just watch the movie!”

Heart Burn

My brother-in-law Jairo says that my heart got welded today. Basically, that’s a good way of putting it. I’m still surprised at how fast everything went. I asked my cardiologist to set me up with a surgeon. That happened within a week. Monday I met Dr. Argentina. Friday I got a call that I was scheduled for Monday, today, and now I am home with my heart welded.

I met some interesting people. Danny was the talkative nurse, filling the time in the OR before the surgeon came in. He’s been to all my haunts, Huatulco, Escondido, Monte Alban, Mitla, even Tule. He took local buses to all the right places to buy black pottery, green pottery, rugs, alebrijes—quite the shopper, apparently. Those of you who live in Mexico know what question comes next from everyone else standing around… but is it safe?

My doctor was Dr. Colombia, but I never got to talk to him. Instead Dr. Danish chatted with me, wondering if I were Danish, because Anne Marie is a common Danish name. I guess Dr. Colombia was a get-down-to-business sort of guy, because he never said anything more than his name. I asked him where he was from, got a reluctant, one word answer, and that was that. Danny and Dr. Danish took it from there.

They said they were giving me a sedative, but I never felt it, and I was wide awake for the two hour procedure. First they froze a spot on my neck and another in the groin. (The nurse who had swabbed me said she was doing both groins. Robert wondered if that can be plural. How many of those can one have?) My heart was cooperating very well, offering its own episodes of tachycardia without being induced. But they had their own system, firing systematically through twelve spots on the heart, from the outside in. They caught my bad spot on the very first try. Right on the outer part of the heart. Left side. Next they poked a needle through the middle of my heart and got a soldering iron in there (actually a glass bulb that heats up) and welded that spot shut. Danny said that it was like holding a hair over a candle. Poof, and it was gone. He said they could see the open pathway on the monitor, the culprit of all my visits to the Bald doctor, and then the next second it was just gone. You could tell he got satisfaction out of that. Job well done. My take on it is that my heart was being extra cooperative that day. Just for him because he reminded it of home. Tule and tacos and all that.

Speaking of which, did I tell you that Thursday night last week we went out with Former Hostess Mom and Hostess dad to eat Guatemalan Mexican tacos? The Guatemalan owners say they have to learn to cook Mexican because it’s what Canadians expect. He says they keep coming in asking, “Hey, you got any burritos?” He says, “No, but I have Mexican tacos.” “Ok,” they say, “I’ll take those…but when will you have those burritos?”

After the Mexican Guatemalan tacos (which were excellent, by the way, and the name of the joint is Holy Guacamole, at the corner of Bunting and Welland, and you can buy real corn tortillas there, and they’re gluten free), we went to see Room. I hope it wins lots of awards. It deserves them.

After the welding job, the doctor said he was going to do a little test. He neglected to warn me he was actually giving me my old friend, that heart stopping medicine! Great! Last chance you’ll be getting to strangle me again. Good riddance! In celebration, my heart did this fancy jig, spasming all over for a few seconds before settling down to be normal from now on. I guess it's me going "AHHHHH!!!" Danny showed me the ECG. It was one crazy mass of up and down lines all over the page. He said this was weird and entertaining but fine. Whew. Glad to make your day.

So after lying flat on my back listening to Freakonomics Radio for 5 hours (did you know that there is not actually much of a gender pay gap? The real difference in pay comes in the fact that moms often take part-time or flexible jobs that pay less) and trying not to squirm from the back pain because that would open the ever-so-slowly clotting groin wound and add another hour to the wait time, I got up and went home at 8:30. Robert enjoyed wheeling me downstairs. I’m woozy. But I’m home. Welded shut. Fixed (anybody hear any chickens?). Sometimes heart burn fixes things.

Thoughts before albation

Thoughts before ablation:

When you go through big things, tragic things, like a suicide in the family, or cancer, or an addiction, one of the things that happens is that you are set apart from the norm in society. You’re different. You stand out, and people don’t understand your language anymore. (I have now joined the select group of people that knows—sort of—what an ablation is, not to be confused with oblation—an offering to a deity, or ablution—a ritual washing). You have acquired a culture and a vocabulary that the people around you may not share. Our teenagers feel this sometimes, “Mom, you just don’t understand!”  How many of us have heard that? They are saying they have moved into a new culture, and we don’t share it. Some people (and parents) are better than others at recognizing new cultures when they come across them, and adjusting, and moving in and out of the various worlds they inhabit. Others aren’t as flexible, grieving more when they lose one world, or getting angry or depressed. It’s not only people traveling to new countries that suffer culture shock.

One way our society deals with culture shock at home is by forming “support” groups. You have AA groups, Prime timer groups (age 55+), New Mom support groups—groups for just about everything. (My friend Janey made some of her best friends in one of those Mom groups, becoming Mom to them, too, in a way, because she was a lot older than them, having had her first baby somewhere around 40.) Retreats for youth or women or missionaries or whoever, are short-lived support groups, times when one particular group celebrates its own shared culture, letting it all hang out, especially the bits about how hard it is to adjust to everyone else.

ablation (wearing away) of a glacier

I’ve been a part of a number of support groups here. I was in a 6 week support group for cancer survivors, learning to play ukulele. The teacher was trying to stretch out our culture to include positive things about our visits to the hospital, so that this particular culture wouldn’t be so grim. Janey twisted my arm to go to a post-mastectomy support group in Hamilton because she thought the teacher (her Zumba instructor) was cool. I thought so, too. When we were doing our arm exercises in the pool, she reached inside her suit (mastectomy bras and swim suits have special pockets), took out her bead-filled “been a boob” (get it?) and tossed it to someone outside the pool. “Hey, some good has to come out of this. Who else can throw their breast across the pool?” she demanded. We understood. We shared her culture. When I first walked into her classroom (glozdrum, as my Syrian friend would pronounce it. Come to think of it, Janey, and Michelle, and several others and I are her support group…and we can’t even understand her language!), two women were talking about how many Herceptin treatments they had left. “I’m done in March.” “I’m done in April.” “Me, too,” I wanted to add. This was a group of women I didn’t have to explain things to. We were all adjusting (or not) together.

Bible studies are support groups, too, in a way. Goodness knows we Christians have our own culture to manage in this world. We share our concerns, and pray for each other, and hold each other accountable in these groups. My BSF group holds me accountable for getting through the book of Revelation, studying it thoroughly and being prepared to share my insights with other “scholars.” I’m in another Bible study group, and this one deals more with character. How do I match what I do with what I say? That was the topic of last week’s discussion, coming from Jesus’ tongue lashing of the Pharisees, who put aside God’s Law (to care for their parents) by creating a loop hole called Corban Law. How many loop holes do we carve into our Christian culture today so that we don’t really have to obey him? Often we adjust…the wrong way.

oblation to a deity

ablution (ritual washing)

We need a Support Group to call us on such things. And there is one. Jesus thought of that, too, among other things. He helps us adjust to his Culture, which brings its own Culture Shock—perhaps the most za’ab (difficult) of all.

Counting chickens

It paid off to have a babysitter for my phone. I got an appointment to see a heart surgeon in Hamilton (that was last week), and Monday I go in for an ablation (that bit where they burn a tiny bit of your heart to form scar tissue that can no longer short circuit and set your heart to beating double time). My doctor had the slightest accent and a last name that hinted of Spanish, and sure enough, he’s Argentinian. He said that four out of five of the doctors on his team at that hospital are Hispanic. Been here for ten years or something. We had the consult in Argentinian Spanish, and the doctor congratulated us on our accents (me especially J).

Interesting to hear his perspective on the procedure. While Dr. Cynical was warning me that the ablation has risks, isn’t reversible, could lead to needing a pace maker, etc, and saying that I could choose to stay on my medication forever, Dr. Argentinian was quite cheerful about the procedure. “You were born with this defective spot in your heart,” he said, drawing a diagram on a piece of paper for me. “It lets the electrical current double back on itself instead of going all the way through from top to bottom. We can take care of that for you.” Piece of cake, basically…should have come in ages ago, as far as he was concerned. He assured me that the risks are very low, and that he hasn’t ever seen a death result from the procedure during all his time practicing at that hospital (the General). Much different attitude than Dr. Cynical who can sound dire when he wants to (which is often).

So Monday I go in for pre-op at 9:30 and the procedure is done at 2. They will put a catheter in my neck and in my leg and reach for the heart. The doctor said something about an “IV induced anesthesia,” though what I read online didn’t include a general anesthesia. And they don’t even have to stop my heart. Whew. Easy peasy (unless there is something they aren’t telling me, which wouldn’t surprise me). I come home the same day. Meanwhile I have to stay off my beta blocker and hope nothing sends me to Emergency before Monday morning. I know a few other people who have had this done, and they are still alive and well, so I think I’m ok.

So after Monday, I can get in a sauna or a Jacuzzi.  I can run when it’s muggy outside (hypothetically speaking). I can do exercises that have me put my head below my knees. I can drink coffee with caffeine in it. I can drive through Vail, Colorado, and stop to walk around. I can swim without having to take a time out after ever lap. I can go to weddings without worrying my medication will go home in another car. I can go back to Mexico without wondering if there are bald doctors with heart-stopping medicine nearby. Yay.

Slowly, we’re dealing with the chemo side-effects and getting ready to go home. One issue down, a few more to go. If only they were all dealt with as quickly and as cheerfully as this one (or am I counting some chickens here). My next appointment is with a rheumatologist to see what to do about the inflammation in my joints that makes me look like I’m walking through molasses when I first get up. What to do about frozen thumbs. I met a woman in a breast cancer support group (more about that later) who was saying her doctor had the gall to tell her, “Lady, you’re aging, you know.”  She protested. I would, too. Listen, doc. Yes. I’m 55. Very, very old. That’s why my joints are frozen. It certainly has nothing to do with that poison they put in your veins that rots your stomach, your blood cells, your nails, and your teeth, and your hair, and your tendons. 

I’ve been in a number of seminars and lectures now, aiming at helping me deal with my journey with cancer. As another lady put it in my group, “I am never going to wear a T-shirt that says I survived cancer. Nope. Mine is going to say, “I survived cancer TREATMENT.” I know exactly how she feels. Sometimes I think the people that need a seminar or lecture are the doctors.

Bargaining power

If you come to visit us in Oaxaca when we get back, you might want to go shopping. We have so much to choose from. You could walk the aisles of the Artisan Market and get shawls or embroidered blouses or beaded purses. You could buy Christmas ornaments made of embossed tin or supple leather pouches. Or you could sit at one of the tables at the 20 de Noviembre market and drink hot chocolate frothed with a wooden paddle and served with rich pasca-like bread. Chocolate comes originally from Mexico and is used there for other things besides desserts, so you could buy chicken bathed in chocolate mole with a side dish of crunchy, salty grasshoppers. Or you could go to a village where people weave rugs in their homes, and you could choose your own natural colors (the red comes from the tiny cochineal bug that grows on cactus leaves). Or you could take a local bus to the town that makes black pottery or to the workshop in Etla where Neftali and Noel, Mixe artisans, some of the best in the nation, apprentice young men from Indian villages in the intricate carving and painting of fantastical creatures called alebrije. For much of this shopping, you will need bargaining skills. You might have to haggle a bit and even walk away to see if the price will come down. If your purchase is the vendor’s first sale of the day, you might see her genuflect to show her gratitude. Bargaining is part of market culture in Oaxaca. It’s part of the shopping experience.

Unfortunately, for me, I hate bargaining, so when visitors want to do that kind of shopping, Robert takes them, and I stay home.  Robert, the true shopper of the family, bargains wherever it’s useful, like at garage sales, Kijiji (Canada’s version of Craig’s List) listings, and pawn shop offers. It’s a skill he was born with. I, on the other hand, want to walk into a store and find a price tag dangling from every item so I can comparison shop without any hovering.

I wonder if this relates to the whole introvert/extrovert thing. Extroverts have long D4DR genes, which make them less sensitive to the neurotransmitter dopamine (a “feel good” gene), so they need to get their “chills and thrills” from outside stimulus like bargaining. Introverts, on the other hand, don’t need as much outside stimulus because their short D4DR genes are quite sensitive to dopamine, and so they get all the “buzz” they need without parachuting out of an airplane or haggling at a Oaxacan market. Whatever the reason, I don’t like it, but I bet it's a necessary skill in making lots of money.

So there is at least one advantage in living in North America: I can at least go shopping without bargaining. But wait! There is a vital product for which bargaining is required, actually, and it’s a matter of living or dying, of solvency or bankruptcy. It’s American health care. In Canada, the Insurer (the Government) has done a lot of bargaining behind the scenes, so the prices for health care are set and not going any lower, no matter who asks. In the US, however, the costs vary all over the place, and they can go up or down depending on who asks and why. If you have insurance, you might get a much higher price for a procedure, or a much lower price as an uninsured individual.  Bargaining is absolutely necessary. When Robert got his back surgery, our insurer negotiated with the hospital (standard procedure) and the bill got cut in half. What would the final bill have been without their bargaining power and knowledge? What if we'd had to to pay the $8000/IV treatment for my cancer? We’d be bankrupt right now.

And my kids are now caught in the US health care system with no safety net, and I have to admit it alarms me, making me feel like a tiny fly caught in the web of a giant spider.  I don’t know what to do. Elai has no insurance because her insurance was cut off when she got married, and Philip’s may be cut off, too—we don’t know—and none of us can afford the $8000/year per child that it would cost to insure them. What do we Americans do? Feels like gambling. Like jumping out of a plane. Like haggling with a spider. Maybe some people like this.

Hypothetically speaking

Let’s say, hypothetically, you are presented with a choice of sponsoring a Syrian refugee family or supporting a missionary family that works in a Muslim country. What do you do? On the one hand, the refugee family is going to be living on your doorstep because your prime minister has committed to bringing 25,000 refugees over. The family needs your immediate help to integrate well into your way of life. The family has been through horror and bears scars. This may be the first time this family has had any interaction with a Christian, and now they could be surrounded by loving, faithful Christian people. What an opportunity to show Christ’s love to the very people deemed our “enemies.” If you work at the relationship and the language, you may have the opportunity to talk about Jesus, something that may never have happened in the life of this Muslim family. They may never have seen Jesus at work in people’s lives. Of course, you run the risk that the young boy in the family may come to your country with a chip on his shoulder and some day turn radical and kill someone. Yes, that might be a risk. And it’s only one family. And there are others out there more eager to help. And there are so many needs begging for attention. And there’s that home reno you’ve already budgeted for.

On the other hand, here is a missionary family set on going overseas to a country where they will be surrounded by Muslims. They will have the opportunity to speak to any number of families, and they will be intent on bringing them to Jesus. They will be doing their utmost to “go and make disciples of all the nations.” They will serve the spiritual needs of a population instead of driving people to English classes and finding them family doctors. In the light of eternity, this is a no-brainer.

The things of this world will grow strangely dim:
moonscape photographed by China National Space Admin.

Or is it? The very fact that these two opportunities are presented as an either-or choice is problematic. It’s like asking if you want to spend time with your husband or your kids. You do both. It can also be symptomatic of a very, very old heresy called Docetism. Docetists, like gnostics, viewed the material world as hopelessly polluted and of no eternal value, an unqualified “This world is not my home” sort of view, a “The things of earth will grow strangely dim” sort of view, so they didn’t invest in learning about it or taking good care of it or learning its history. None of us Evangelicals live to this extreme. We are excellent at helping people. But sometimes we live shades of this heresy. A friend just said to me today in refutation of sponsoring refugees, “Sometimes we get distracted from our main mission…to go and make disciples.”

This world is not my home:
moonscape photographed by China National Space Admin.

This could be a shade of Docetism, which denies the Incarnation. When Jesus became a man, he placed infinite value on every human quality, on every molecule of our earth, on every atom of our universe. God took on the cosmos as his home, “moving into the neighborhood” as Petersen puts it, and when he did that, he made all the world worthy of care and redemption. There is zero dichotomy between caring for people’s souls and caring for people’s stomachs, because God made both, incarnated both, and redeemed both. Always both. Jesus didn’t turn away from people’s suffering in order to care for their souls. Nor did he heal people to gain an audience for his message. Paul even set aside his church planting ministry to take money to Jerusalem to feed hungry people. It was always both for them. It is impossible to “go and make disciples” unless those disciples truly “obey all that I have said,” which includes, “Love your enemy; do good to him that hates you.” “Where were you when I was hungry? Where were you when I was languishing in a prison- refugee camp? Depart from me. I never knew you.” It’s always both. We are called to make disciples of Jesus who worship him by loving his creation and his creatures. Here. Now. There are many, many things to distract us from the Kingdom of God, but human suffering is not one of them. It’s usually something much closer to home.