A Home in L'Arche

(Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche)

I’ve been blessed to receive a job as a live-in assistant at L’Arche Irenicon located in Haverhill, Massachusetts. L’Arche is an organization that forms communities around the needs of individuals with disabilities. It strives to love and receive those who have developmental disabilities and are in need of not just a home, but a community that values their life and gifts. Mainstream society tends to cast out such people for their inadequate ability to compete with them; dancing toe to toe for popularity, success, and regard. L’Arche doesn't label people as unworthy and considers itself a place "where people with and without disabilities share their lives together, give witness to the reality that persons with disabilities possess inherent qualities of welcome, wonderment, spirituality, and friendship" (http://larcheusa.org/).

What draws me to the philosophy of L’Arche is how grounded they are in the belief that people with disabilities are full blessings; sources of light that act as lamps for our feet in the night. We are quick to identify the external shortcomings of poverty, hunger, and sickness, but hardly those who are poor in spirit. L’Arche sees internal unrest as equal a handicap as any exposed disability. In essence, these homes are meant to heal and bless both those who would and would not be labeled as someone of "special needs".

Jesus taught that love, in the fullest capacity of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, is integral to the spiritual life (Luke 10:27). It seems to me that the greatest handicap of all is the one universally shared- the inability to truly love in the name of the Father like the Son. It is not in our nature to glorify God and others over ourselves easily, but it is a choice that we have the potential to make. Those who form the communities of L’Arche gather together in recognition of their strengths, gifts, friendships, and worth, but also in admittance of their depravity and what they are in bondage to- a broken body or a broken spirit. Through this genuine wholeness of the community they celebrate the humility and love for God that abounds in this decision. They do their best to communally make a choice of love in the name of the Father.

This comes with a hope to enter into mutual relationships that are not elevating one person over the other, but do try to offer love, grace, acceptance, and friendship. The weakness, the imperfection, the vulnerability, and the lesser-ness that we bury become the unveiled pathway towards real community and life. It is a willingness to allow God to be glorified in our weaknesses and paradoxically define that as our strength. From my understanding, L'Arche attempts to go in and through the good, bad, and ugly so that we strive to become truer versions of ourselves. We learn to accept and forgive our own and other's deficiencies and grow in the ability to accept and give relationship.

Core members become friends of the highest regard, people with immense blessings… for they are the meek, merciful, pure of heart, and they are peacemakers (Matthew 5:1-11). The undercurrent of their presence inspires and fulfills. Jean Vanier wrote that we are healed from the broken and the poor. In a mutually exchanging environment of care, grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice we are drawn toward the unveiling of our true selves and allow that presence to step out from hiding and onto the water- responding faithfully to the encouragement of Christ to "come" (Matthew 14:22-33).

It is a healing of the heart that we have so painstakingly feared and desired- one that requires a certain courageousness to become vulnerable, faithful, and the "least of these" (Matthew 25:40,45). Those who have been wounded by rejection find a place of worthiness and acceptance. Those who have suffered from inwardness and contempt, whose hearts have gone searching, discover a home and the embrace that preceded it. We fall into the care of our heavenly Father who, though we were a long way off, waited and watched over the horizon for our return and when He saw us He was filled with compassion- we were run to, held, and kissed (Luke 15:20). This explains why the communities of L’Arche are built around people with disabilities, not only to give, but also to receive these subtle beauties. It is a lifestyle of care- one that is meant to empty oneself while trusting in God to restore us in the process. Discover a life where you find yourself in this embrace and are able to offer it to others.

The Birds Are Composing

There are precise moments in life where it is meant to be about you. Those 'fifteen minutes of fame' where one feels recognized, accomplished, celebrated, seen, perhaps even relieved. Going to a wedding we focus on the bride and groom, a graduation- the graduate, a funeral- the living, a recital- the musician, and this list could grow more expansive by the minute. These hallmarks of celebration symbolize a communal affirmation of belonging in our relationship toward God and our communities.

These moments might not pan out the way we had hoped- they have the capacity to enrich our lives, but also to cripple. And when the direction of the evening turns awry we can be reminded of past hurts and give life to new ones. The disappointment can pull us into fear and trembling, selfishness and self-lessness. Sometimes they counter-intuitively lead us into darkness, into temptation, into our own brokenness.

Graduating college I have experienced this sense of being adrift. Sure there are plans, hopes, aspirations (hopefully), but life is truly up in the air. As we eagerly await the moment we accept our diploma we unwittingly submit to our initiation into the so-called 'real world'. Some people are just itching to remind you of this- like a sucker-punch. This phrase can irk me because it assumes that the life that has preceded that moment was somehow second-rate living. As if watching people live and die and all those minute happenings that happen in between the two don't matter unless the scholastic right of passage of western academia is placed into my hand: a diploma. The message here is that life starts after I grab hold of a sheet of paper with fancy leather-bound edges and typed lettering that reads 'Ryan F. Birch'. Give me a break.

What is the 'real' suppose to be after all? Is it truly falling face-first into the hardships of economic sustenance the way it is implied? I don't buy that. Isn't 'real' suppose to be experiencing beauty and hardships, hearing laughter and pain, feeling tears slide down cheeks, attending the births, weddings, and funerals of our lives, sitting with brokenheartedness, grief, love, confusion, observing blessings, basking in nature, experiencing the moment? Sitting in the MOMENT- whatever it may behold. It doesn't take a diploma to do that- ask the hundreds of children neighboring Walk in the Light in Harniville.

A friend once said he was a firm believer that no matter the circumstances we always have a choice from moment to moment. Jon Foreman sings that "CHOICE" is the only thing we're given.

I feel pretty feint from any implied dislocation to the 'real world'. I've experienced degrees of both the numbing sense of disappointment and the vibrant enthusiasm of beauty and contentment. Four years accomplished from college, two weeks adrift since college, but twenty two years worth of wounds in my wake. I've realized that whatever that next ceremonial experience may be, there's no running from ourselves. And what I found out even more recently is that there's no running from that 'moment' that strikes you. Those moments that creep. The ones that are not easy or plain, the ones that define who you are, who you want to be, and how you're going to walk it.

Right now I'm walking through a challenging season of life- I'm not sure if it should ever be anything less than that, but still. It leaves me with questions, accusations, worry, uncertainty, fear, anger, restlessness, and hurt. Although it is not due to the post-20's adrift-like angst that many of my fellow peers have shared with me. The fact is that I've had one of those 'moments'- where life caves in- where as much as you look forward in life, to that path you wish to pave, there's that snag that makes you feel stuck and you can't help but turn back. A moment that makes it hard to believe it is simply another circumstance and will pass because the pain is so sharp and old. The pain is aging, wrinkled, senile, but still alive. And when it pays you a visit uninvited it carries grief alongside it. It inflicts pain or reopens the wounds. Yet, I still have a choice as to how I can respond.

Jesus loved us when we were entirely responsible of evil and entirely deserving to wither. When I was, am, and will be momentarily leading withered living- Christ refused to take Himself off of the cross and He did this for those I struggle to love on as well. There's risk involved when living a life that gives too much weight to the ghosts of the past. For me, it is a false message of worthlessness, and I become reminded of my own fragility and brokenness. I've been faced with the active challenge of claiming my own belovedness, to sit in the palm of my Heavenly Father, and one thing that has served as a therapeutic resuscitator is the side-project music from Jon Foreman. Granted, there are more practical things I'm pursuing to sort out the issues at hand, sit with God in the moment, and make steps towards wholeness, but what I want to share- which has the potential to be much more commonly appreciated- is a song that has centered me in the belovedness I speak of.

The fact is that my love, my integrity, my character is made strong through my willingness to be made weak, to allow myself to be honest and vulnerable. Have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror and given up the battle to deny your shortcomings, to stop running from your sorrow and allow it to seep into your expressions? Try it, sit there, stare, and say "Lord, I'm hurt. I'm struggling-". All the sudden the reflection in the mirror begins to unravel and that exterior image becomes a doorway into your heart. The curvature of the face, the brows, the wrinkles, the eyes, they all become extensions of the soul and we see a deeper side of ourselves.

There is only one love, one character, one being, one essence that is strong- Jesus. It is this strength that is founded upon His love and this love that is evident in His weakness that we require to be strong- to be upheld in the face of people and circumstances that break our hearts...moment to moment, day after day, year after year. It is what makes our reflections both bearable and beautiful.

Foreman writes in "Your Love is Strong" from the EP album 'Spring':

Heavenly Father, you always amaze me

Let your kingdom come in my world and in my life

You give me the food I need to live through the day

And forgive me as I forgive the people that wronged me

Lead me far from temptation

Deliver me from the evil one

I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW THE BIRDS ARE COMPOSING

NOT A NOTE IS OUT OF TUNE OR OUT OF PLACE

I look at the meadow and stare at the flowers

Better dressed than any girl on her wedding day

So why do I worry?

Why do I freak out?

God knows what I need

You know what I need

Your love is strong

Listening to this song (which I'm obviously suggesting you go buy it on itunes or something) one part I gravitate towards is about looking out the window and listening to the birds. It sounds like something so small and irrelevant, but to do it requires deliberate intentionality. The interactive behavior with nature that is implied in the song seems to mend the heavenly to the mundane- God in creation. To say that there is some sort of perfect harmony going on around us, if we can stand patiently, looking, and listening- there is not a note out of tune or misplaced, it is not random and it is not purposeless. It takes me from this place of hurt, from deep awareness of pain, and provides me with hindsight. It gives me that slight bit of perspective I so painstakingly lack in the moments where it counts. In the midst of struggle, of a life that can feel as if it is collapsing, there is this opportunity to look OUTWARD. To be self-aware, hurt, and guarded, but to be focused on God, on beauty, and on hope. To make the connection that simultaneously God is intimately calling me in, individually, with a unique voice, but equally calling me 'out' as well- a reminder that it is not 'ME' that these moments are entirely about. If we respond to our 'moments' with a purpose to be driven by self-satisfaction or relief and if we forget to filter our desires with the heart of God and His heart for everyone... we can slowly enter into death. Our lives are not meant to be centered on painlessness, power & influence, self-righteousness and intelligence, the whimsical belief that the reflection in the mirror is meant to satisfy how we would like to see ourselves. We find our lives when we are willing to lose them- lose them to ourselves, to the unloveable, to the difficult circumstances that are unavoidable.

This is the lesson we can grab from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our cross. He died for the most unloveable person we know... ourselves... For me, Myself. That's one testament as to why His love is stronger than I'll ever know.

In our imitation of Christ, we must be practicing this sacrifice, this selflessness, this love, and we must participate in claiming an identity of belonging and belovedness. We're not worthy, but to God, we are. So God made a CHOICE...to defy logic. His defiance was in our favor and it is this grace that makes Him all the more worthy of our following. This is so difficult to do when our circumstances are no longer breezes. This is why in the song we have to ask for the 'food we need to get through the day'. We have to take it one moment at a time- loving the people that are unloveable becomes the redeeming act, on our part, to pick up our crosses, and to own our parts in relationships despite the response of the other half.

I love Foreman's album art for "Limbs and Branches". Obviously, branches are more offshoots from primary limbs- but it shows the fruit of good living. It may begin with something small, the fruit dangles from something weak like a feeble branch, but if you trace backwards, it takes you all the way to the core, to the strength of the tree that is at the center of its life and purpose. We are branches, but we are all part of something greater than ourselves.

Foreman ends "Your Love is Strong" with a well-worded version of the Lord's prayer:

Our God in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Above all names
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
Give us, today, our daily bread
Forgive us weary sinners
Keep us far from our vices
And deliver us from these prisons

My hope is that this prayer is answered- day by day. I pray we may experience freedom from the things that bind us no matter what the circumstance is. I'm a firm believer that God's love is strong and that it liberates us, no matter what happens, no matter how bad it hurts, no matter who it is- we have a center that our lives branch out from and it is a love that gives us strength- we're like limbs and branches. If we look outside of our circumstances we can hear the Lord calling us to follow Him, composing beautifully, perfectly, and effortlessly. It is a love that calls us to live higher WHILE life is up in the air, WHILE pain is deeply felt, WHILE the moment creeps. It is the orchestrated silence of a love that draws us "in" and calls us "out".

Not a note that's out of tune...

or out of place.

Lord, Your Love is Strong

A South African Farewell

There's something mysteriously powerful in the grief and gratitude of a farewell. The terrifying sadness in saying goodbye is so touching because it doesn't just express a deep appreciation for one another, but it openly affirms the fact that we have loved life TOGETHER.

We're affirming the other's presence as something we deem life unfit without. We've done all the HUMAN things together: to be imperfect, to laugh, to cry, to love and it is so wonderful when we can't see ourselves without them in the picture ever again.

We've welcomed someone into our heart. That's what it means to be sad in a farewell. That's what it means to grieve the loss of someone's presence. It means they are loved. It means you have been loved.

When arms are being extended to hug that person goodbye they are being invited in, for one last time, to be openly affirmed in a reciprocated love.

I have shared life with miniscule portions of South Africa, Walk in the Light, with you Bruce, David, Phindile, Anne, with you Sabello, Togo, Tandegile, Alfred, Sipo, Pretty, yes you Harniville- and I could not have been more blessed by your presence.

In the waning days of my time with Walk in the Light I could not absorb all that I was being hit with...and I knew it. At the end of each day we would drive through and away Harniville I knew in each millisecond of life that I wanted to take this in; the look, the smell, the road, the people, the homes. Each and every image I wanted to store up so it could act like an eternal photo-album that I could tap into during any second of the day.

Previously I wrote about the 1st man I encountered with HIV/AIDS-his name is Sabello. I left you with an image of a weak, sickly, mysterious person. I sat by his feet and prayed earnestly for the first miracle I ever have in my life.

Perhaps the most all-encompassing, full-circle event of my experience at Walk in the Light can be said in Sabello's story. I sat there, troubled, scared, doubtful, FAITHLESS at times, begging for God to give this man more life.

Several weeks later I was given the honor to teach during their Sunday service ministry. Here I am in Africa with this Zulu translator to my left about to teach these people what they had been teaching ME (humbling to say the least) and who do I see toward the back of the crowd? Sabello. The man had walked a LONG WAY to get to this service, the man who couldn't sit up weeks before was all the sudden...

THERE.

It clicked from that point on that God was divinely there, with us, with me-and that never changes, but this is the moment where I momentarily reached a plain of understanding that is divinely true. I do not know how this man is doing of late, but he weighs heavily on my heart whenever I think back to my experiences... I return to his face.

In Africa I both carried and buried a child of God. I've seen life and death- staying and passing.

Quite the contrast.

During a prayer walk we went on throughout Harniville-the mother of the 17 year old boy who died by the red-hands of his best-friends sat defeated and weeping just a foot to my left. We just stood there with her for a moment, prayed to the Lord for comfort and worship, and sat in a discomforting silence.

The silence you feel when you're next to someone slowly dying on a row of chairs- it's discomforting because it's horrible to feel helpless. It's so discontenting to be up in the air, clouded, in ASHES on things and all you want to do is bring healing.

It's the tension of that moment that the Lord worked in us though. It was the tension of those seconds that felt like hours and months that felt like seconds.

The moments where you wonder where God might be or you recognize that presence so warmly and intimately that you feel blessed to have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Recently there has been a tragic happening to a great man in my community back home. It is one of those things that hits you out of nowhere, unexpected, and unREAL. He is a man of God that lives life from the heart. Upon sudden news of this unexpected happening I was smack dab in the middle of that tension again. I have been ever since. You ask questions like, "what can I do?" And even more familiar sounding, "Where are you GOD?"

Sometimes the most heart-wrenching thing can happen and all the sudden you question if you'll be able to ever feel it thumping in your chest again.

It is important for us to value these moments of tension though.

I'm realizing, be it in prayer with my friend in the WAMU parking lot or a HOSPITAL or a CHURCH, we can always belt out that cry. That ever so familiar cry that Christ exclaims on the Cross,"My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?"

It's so fitting because it proclaims a universal fear in us all. That we're worthless, meaningless, purposeless, powerless, unworthy, non-BELOVED, randomized creations of a hopeless world. It's the seed by which we sprout from. Whether it be your Dad said you weren't worth it to stay and broke your heart and home simultaneously or the one you love the most is lying on that hospital bed. Whether it be the powerlessness you initially feel sitting next to Sabello or a cry of grief from a sonless Mother.

Christ embraced us for those moments with his own enduring of God Forsakenness; that TOTAL ALONENESS. God embraced us in those moments with his atonement on the Cross and enabled us to cry out from our death-defying fears and heart-wrenching love not just that He can relate to us, but so we never have to endure it. Christ did, but we never will.

I want to speak directly to this specific condition of the heart. Suffering- not because of Walk in the Light, not because of Africa. We have to acknowledge pain, vulnerability, and the fear of God-Forsakenness because in the fast-paced, wreckage of living we can get too caught up in a blissful reality. So it seems quite fitting to bring this whole thing up just to freeze the frame for a second and take in what God has done, doing, and will do for us.

Henri Nouwen writes in, "Life of the Beloved" about this idea of our BELOVEDNESS (good word). This special place that we need to operate out of to; to be capable of love we have to believe that we ARE loved. I want to quote a portion of this book because I think it's something that comes off very passe in our day and age, but we truly need to KNOW it:

"When I know that I am chosen, I know that I have been seen as a special person. Someone has noticed me in my uniqueness and has expressed a desire to know me, to come closer to me, to love me. When I write to you that, as the Beloved, we are God's chosen ones, I mean that we have been seen by God from all eternity and seen as unique, special, precious beings. It is very hard for me to express well the depth of meaning the word "chosen" has for me, but I hope you are willing to listen to me from within. From all eternity, long before you were born and became a part of history, you existed in God's heart. Long before your parents admired you or your friends acknowledged your gifts or your teachers, colleagues, and employers encouraged you, you were already "chosen." The eyes of love had seen you as precious, as of infinite beauty, as of eternal value. When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded." (Pg. 53-54)

So allow me to impart a blessing on any of you whom might be reading:

You are GOLDEN.

Whomever is suffering or suffering from watching suffering, know that you and they are GOLDEN. Loved, prized, and worthy. Worthy enough that Jesus died for him or her. Completely cherished by God. Receive this, take it in, allow it to grow on you.

God is there for you...

RIGHT

NOW

Breathe in and take that in at the same time. God is there for you, He is your companion in the pain of a hurt loved one or a hurtful farewell. He's amidst those moments where you absolutely, 100% are grieving for the love of this precious gift God has given you called LIFE.

This is something that Walk in the Light taught me, this is something I have returned home with, and I believe the most fulfilling way I can truly take it in is to share it to whomever might need it.

The complacency of my heart has not met the urgency that this world requires, but hopefully, in the blessing of my words it can serve as a message of love to push I and anyone else who runs across them toward action.

My experience at Walk in the Light tugs on my heart to do more, to live higher, to not forget.

As I left Walk in the Light with my hand suspended in the air- waving goodbye, I realized that my heart had experienced something very tremendous; an outpouring of His presence through truly special people.

Farewell to Walk in the Light and everyone I encountered in South Africa whom I have left for home. If there's one thing I can take back from my experience, it is that you have loved me so undeservingly so and I pray that I have reflected that love upon you as well.

Thank You.

A South African Pan of Ashes

Job 2:8, 10- “Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes… Job replied, ‘…-Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

6,000 people die a month from HIV/AIDS in Pietermaritzburg alone.

The Walk in the Light director, Bruce, did more than 70 funerals last year.

A set of X-ray results for a young man with Tuberculosis lost at a government hospital (Bruce affirmed that can be the trend).

Informal settlements insulated with mud, covered with metal boards, and held up with wooden sticks.

A woman in the Township of Harneyville, running away from the Walk in the Light staff bringing her medicine. She didn’t need treatment because she heard a ‘voice’ the previous night that told her she was completely healed from both HIV and TB.

A jam-packed clinic that was full of people awaiting check-ups, test results, or meetings to cope with the results. Ages ranged from infants to grandparents.

A dead body lying face up in the middle of the road; shoddily covered with a thin sheet of silver-tin paper kept down by the man’s own shoes. Blood divided in three, thick, streams that strayed from the upper cavity of his chest towards the slant of the road.

Good morning team Walk in the Light (The NGO our service project team affiliates itself: Me, Jenny, Ivor, Eric, Anna, Walker, Corrie)

South Africa has 1st world elements meshed with 3rd world tragedy- as I'm sure most corners of this earth withhold no matter the circumstance.

Never in my life have I seen a place of such wonderful and awe-inspiring beauty, the kind that captures you where you are and forces you to sit with it.

Neither have I experienced a place of such direful depravity, the kind that turns the stomach and swells the eyes.

This is the great paradox of what I've experienced in Africa.

How does one make sense of suffering, especially when brought upon our existence through the wickedness of our own hearts?

It is clear that the ticking time bomb that is HIV/AIDS is fashioned by human depravity unwilling to commit to God, leading lives of sexual immorality. How much of an epidemic would this be if everyone abstained from premarital sex and stayed faithful to one partner?

The African ABC’s tagline is: Abstain, Be faithful to one partner, Condomize.

I would disagree with anyone who thinks HIV/AIDs is GOD’S curse on humanity. God is who warned us, God is the One who heals, comforts, and offers His condolences during times of loss and suffering- and through all this, He is made higher- all the more worthy to love and place our trust in as well as all the more worthy to mourn with. HIV/AIDS is a curse brought on by OURselves. I've noticed a dangerous resistance towards taking responsibility for our actions, especially when it is time to face the consequences, and this makes it all the more trendy to point the finger at God.

I think most Christians can look back at some of the most difficult things in their lives and find that God has used that for good and redeemed certain heart-wrenching happenings.

This is yet one stream of thoughts on many problems I’ve encountered not in Africa, but in us. I’m talking about people, real people: you, me, US. An 'US' without borders, classifications, labels, and elitist distinctions.

Problems such as the devastation of HIV/Aids working against the lives of so many, or oppression similar to the horrors of Apartheid, at first confront my faith with the God I believe in with all my heart. This first confrontation- a doubt in the One I live for- is more deeply representative of the fears and weaknesses of my own heart and flesh, they are in many ways superficial. Grasping for greater attentiveness to the meaning of such problems though, in the face of suffering, can lead me to a humbled but enlightened state. A state in which my pride and fear can meet their (my) match. I learn quickly, the truth of it corroding my spirit, that as much as this world feels purposeless in the face of suffering, so is God redeemed through it. As much knowledge, power, wealth, or pride we can accumulate, so is our powerlessness without God as well.

This is how I felt when I encountered my first HIV/TB victim laying across a row of chairs in the meeting hall at Walk in the Light. He slept, but there seemed to be no peace that went with it. He barely had the energy to acknowledge my presence. I managed to send him a friendly nod before he dosed off in exhaustion. All I could do for him in THAT specific moment was sit next to him… and pray for him-be it medically, emotionally, spiritually, or supernaturally that he be healed and comforted.

This is where David Crowder can help. Here he is talking about the album art off his 2005 CD, A Collision or (3+4=7):

“There's a pursuit in search of the core of existence. When you research a bit, you learn about the atom, this invisible particle, yet we can split that apart as well. But the cover [album art] has [this diagram of] an atom hovering above a picture of a little boy, which was the codename of the first atomic bomb dropped. Well, our own pursuits wind up broken too. So it's really a beautiful cover, depicting the core of life and what everything's all about, yet we're so broken and depraved, we destroy stuff in the process.”

I honestly don't believe in coincidences. That is why I don’t think its coincidence that in what is perhaps one of the most trivial seasons of my life that I am bombarded with the idea of Kingdom.

Depravity, but Kingdom. Does depravity + Kingdom = sense? I don’t know. So I’ll have to just call it what it is. Kind of like Crowder: a collision.

One example: 1st Church service attended at Walk in the Light ministry, held in their meeting hall. A concrete room with beaten chairs, an unclosed roof, and a pungent smell converged by chemicals, dirt, & agriculture. This Church was not about four walls, but the people inside of them. This Church had room for 30, but not for 1. Towards the end of the service David asks the crowd if there is prayer needed. A woman brings a young boy, no more than three years, lying practically unconscious in her arms (due to seizures from not yet known reasons, called ‘fitting’ here in Africa). Dave hoists him into his arms as the mother’s tears begin to stream- and we ALL pray. Since western Christians are all so poignant about their formulas, try this on for size:

A wonderful Church + a suffering family =

God’s Kingdom injected into Worldly depravity

This is a collision between two shades- one dark and one light. These are the directions in which we are pulled towards. Crowder says gravity weighs us down, yet the sky falls all the way to the ground. There’s no space inbetween the two and Christ has made Himself the Lark. Ascending us up, towards God and pulling others up with us.

On the 1st day of service projects I ‘coincidently’ opened up to Matthew 6:25-34 and was reminded not to worry, seeking first His Kingdom. If the birds in the air, the lilies of the field, and the grass are sculpted beautifully in His care, do not be troubled by the necessities of your life- God has it in mind; trust in the Lord.

But what about all the people who do not have these necessities as abundantly as I, yet have great faith in Christ or goodness and love? At the very least they have been blessed in their strong faith due to these iniquities.

The Bread and Wine of His flesh and blood are coming to them. I guess we can say that through the quote&quote ‘coincidence’ that comes with me reading the Gospel of John over this semester- the Holy Spirit led me to John 6:53-58:

“53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

Reflecting on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12- helping to define the absolutes of what kind of people the Kingdom is for. A quick recap (each deserving their own space for emphasis):

The poor in spirit,

Those who mourn,

The meek,

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

The merciful,

The pure in heart,

The peacemakers,

And those who are persecuted because of righteousness

And at the end of this, Jesus tells us,“-Rejoice and be glad…”

In the beginning of this note you read a passage from Job. Here we find Job willingly and faithfully given up by God to Satan’s hands with exemption of Job’s life.

Job is on a journey with God- one that didn’t consist of making sense of it all, but to have a faith that can endure...a faith enough to dare to be bold.

Recently, the president of Azusa Pacific University, John Wallace, came and visited us. He left some parting words as to how we can go about these last 27 days in South Africa. These words were meant to encourage and push us to live each day to it’s fullest. These words had to do with thanksgiving.

Let’s split that in two. 1. Thanks, 2. Giving. This is something that speaks directly to my condition, the heart paradox. Wallace went on to say that come later, be it February, March, April, whenever; we’re going to miss where we are NOW.

David Crowder, in his newest 2007 album, Remedy, he helps mesh world depravity with God Kingdom, familiar to the 1st and 3rd world aspects of South Africa. His new album art shines by way of a green medical cross on the front. This was his form of cathartic release and now my own. In one song titled, “O, surely we can change” he sings:

And the problem is this
We were bought with a kiss
But the cheek still turned
Even when it wasn’t hit

And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that

When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do

Where there is pain
Let there be grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Help them be brave
Where there is misery
Bring expectancy
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Something

One album review explains that:

“Remedy focuses on God's constant presence as the answer to our hurts while challenging listeners to be the balm needed in the lives of others. Remedy is a meditation on God's love and unfailing presence. As the album progresses, Crowder takes the message slightly further. The title track acknowledges how God heals his people when they come together in worship, and the acoustic closer "Surely We Can Change" isn't as much a prayer for internal transformation as it is for external influence on the world.”

This is what brings me full circle. Although I am cautious to mimic the intense labeling that many modern Christians are apt to do, I cannot deny my convictions to share but one understanding I have in reading Job:

40 Chapters later, through all his suffering, we find Job in the ashes again, despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes to God. He has journeyed with God, followed through in this one stint, and he is better for it.

I’m in the ashes. I’m covered in them. Sometimes I want to grab and close the distance, make answers (or excuses?), tempted to propel myself from the unknowing into the labeling. Are you in a place like this? May be for you it has to do with love, school, jobs, family, friends, lifestyle, sexual lifestyles, sickness, simply fill in the blank.

The difficulty comes with the understanding that this is where God wants me to be right now. This is where I need to stay, in ashes; if Job hadn’t, he would of never learned. I’m enkindled BY my heart paradox to learn. There’s no shame in that. As Christians, we should learn to embrace the ashes.

See part of the problem is impatience. As our semester group left for Africa there was so much discourse on how we’ll be ‘changed’-‘come back different’-‘be broken’- and to a certain extent we have all struggled to search for that within us. There was all this premature TRANSLATION being done, these futile attempts to specify God’s work via spiritual jargon.

It went like this: brain receives insecure impulses then the mouth opens- continuous talking, acting out, and projecting of spiritual personas.

Rather than going like this: be still, breathe, pray.

That’s what the ashes are all about anyways; it’s about taking your day-to-day life and walking with God with this big, question mark, halo hovering over your head and heart. That’s where learning and more importantly growth can sprout. I find that however more curious and unsettled some people are, the more they want out of life; whether Christian or not, I respect that. I think that desire is what God works through.

It’s about standing pat because you trust God is working in you or me, in Walk in the Light, informal settlements, sickly children, someone you love whom is not there, HIV/AIDS/TB, our sins, the world, and even in the fact that he has worked and offered Himself over to the man lying dead in the street, through His own death thousands of years ago.

Be patient and rejoice in the seasons where you learn to stand pat.

The Kingdom of God awaits this world. It isn’t in Heaven, it’s on Earth. It is both now and future. It is here and is coming. This is confusing, but I encourage you to experience the aftermath of things that trouble your soul. Sit in the ashes of your grief, your worries, your confusion.

Just.

Sit.

When John Wallace talked with us he offered simple words (or word?) that can fit into my experience. Thanksgiving. Give thanks, then give. That’s all I can do at this moment, I can help build Kingdom amidst depravity. I’ll remember this so I can appreciate where I am NOW come February, March, April, whenever.

The experiences I’ve had sitting in the ashes have brought redemption to my purpose. The Lord has renewed my confusion with a reminder that HE is the REMEDY. Amidst suffering, the idea of God’s Kingdom only makes MORE sense to me now. Let us all bring the Remedy.

THINK ‘ashes’ then BE ‘remedy’

I’ll remember this during moments I stand pat at night. Staring into the sky, beneath an African view of the stars. Because I know a day will come when all I want is to be

Right

Where

I

Am.

A South African Rush Through the Lungs

South Africa.

Familiar sounding, but faint when my mind attempted to formulate a picture of what it looks like. It's in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa and it's overseas-definition complete? Hardly.

Being a newbie to traveling plus about 25 hours of airtime all together, I was hardly thinking about what to expect when I would first arrive in South Africa. I just new that there was a destination in which I was given the opportunity to GO, so I went.

"Why?" the Semester Interviewer Carrie asked back in Spring of 07'. My reply: Global perspective on people, God, culture...true, but lacking fervor. I don't claim any Spiritual authority that God specifically whispered in my ear: "Souuuuutthhh Afriiiccaaa" - but I will say that God made the idea of South Africa move within me and whether he was saying now or later or never, I sat and prayed and said, "I want this God. I want to do this. I want this opportunity to learn about life in such a different manner than I've ever known before. I don't mean to bargain with you, so I'll just tell you right now...if the doors open on this one for me. I'm going." Little did I know He was listening.

In a nutshell, I came here to learn. I wanted to get a taste of a reality beyond my own. I prayed to get here and now I'm praying to BE here. As Kyle Lake puts it in his book, (re)Understanding Prayer:

"So a better translation of the biblical word "believe" would be to place the full weight of your life in something........Take whatever it is you're praying about, whatever it is you're believing. Then apply movement. Perspiration. Muscle. Initiative. Exertion. Arms working. Feet running. Eyes reading. Mind thinking. Anything less is not a whole-life following of Christ."

If we're being honest here, I wanted God to specifically do one thing for me while I flew over a bed of clouds that looked like a second layer of ocean on the plane. I wanted to be humbled and let me take a moment to expand on that.

Humbled. Not in the manner when I comfortably mention in my 5 person bible-study how the Lord is really breaking me, clinging to an insecure need to label everything God does in my life. I mean, HUMBLED.

One thing I've learned is that often American culture see's Africa as this RITE OF PASSAGE for our faith. We go there, help the poor little black suffering Africans and come home like a pompous child hoping for recognition: "oh, look at me Jesus, I'm so GOOD. Did you see what I did over there in Africa!?"

I mean HUMBLED like the version where my head get's taken out of my ass. This version would imply a couple of things: 1) I realize that I don't have a grip on things, 2)I don't know everything, 3)my culture ISN'T the best, 4) and that God has MUCH bigger things on his plate than me wining over a 7 page paper and what Church I want to attend back in Azusa.

This version would imply my 32 year old CCC roommate from Lisotho, Kaama, who sits next to my bed late at night and explains to me how he was beat and left for dead, bleeding profusely, lying on the dirt ground and in his last waning moments of life. As his body is rushed to a hospital in critical care, Kaama's body decides to completely cave in. Constriction. Loss of breath. Death upon him. And as he lay in his hospital bed, knowing that he is done for, as an unbeliever he says, "God I don't know if you are real, but if you are out there, if you give me breath again, I promise I will devote my entire life to you and do whatever you ask of me."

BAM! AND THE VERY SECOND HE FINISHED THAT THOUGHT... AIR RUSHES THROUGH HIS LUNGS AGAIN. Life breathes in Kaama, Kaama breathes in God. And from there, the rest is history. His life is God's and he couldn't be HAPPIER. The exchange of that relationship between him and God completely outweighs the physical damage done to the left side of his body.

Humbled in the fashion in which a fellow CCC student named Reagan pulls me alongside him, in a free, flowing love that circulates through his words with genuineness and grace and shares with me the death of his brother and his brother's child and it's hurtful effect on his family and self. Then as he continues on, he says:

"Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel like there are two sides of me. The happy Reagan and the sad Reagan that I hide. I have no cover up. This is me. I have learned to merge my scars. I now HEAL THROUGH MY WOUNDEDNESS and it is A PART OF MY BEING."

Beautiful. Little did I know that this bright young man was going to steal two books of mine, read them both in three weeks, one of which I have had for a year and have not read to this day. Little did I know that this young man would decide to drop a note in one of the books for me as a parting gift.

The interesting thing is that when I discovered this note I was questioning heavily my commitment to ministry. Was it something that I really wanted to do (the 1st time I have questioned this since I was 15 years old btw). In Reagan's parting note he explains a prayer he has for me. It reads:

"Dear Ryan...I am blessed indeed by you. I am blessed by your love for ministry and my prayer is that you realize that: Your calling for ministry transcends the boundaries & limitations of the States and even the west! My prayer is that God would bring you out and enrich you with awesome experiences as far as ministry in its totality is concerned. Perhaps we'll meet again...in the business of the Kingdom.

Love,
Reagan"

It may not seem much to you, but whoever you are, you're not ME. And this was ALL I needed.

HUMBLED. Where I acknowledge the poverty that lies 15 minutes away in the Township of Gugulethu or Kyalitsha - where there are literally neighborhoods of homemade shacks built with mud, fire wood, or metal boards - scarce money, scarce water, scarce electricity (if any of these things). Where families LIVE under those conditions, jam-packed in shacks that were half the size of my room where I was staying in Cape Town. Humbled in the manner that saw a certain contentment in the workers of a childcare center in the middle of a township that had little kids, stacked next to eachother with every inch available, napping. The smiles on the caretakers faces were telling. If you ask me, undermanned... WITH babies and toddlers does not equal success. But that just goes to show you the strength and beauty of a woman.

Now let me share an observation. Do these impacting situations that have impressed humility upon my heart for God's people seem like stuff I'M DOING!? NO. And that's exactly the point.

I don't want this experience to become a fairytale of how much I DID or how much I've been through. The point would be entirely missed.

I just want this experience to enter straight into my heart and help me live in every breath...the way Kaama showed me is possible.

I just want this experience to LEAVE from my heart and help me BE. In every language-barrier conversation, every powerful worship experience, every braii, in each exposure to someone expressing their heart sincerely to God. I saw this trait in Reagan's eyes as he shared about the tragic death of his brother. I want that LOOK. That look of appreciating not everyTHING we have, but every MOMENT we have in this life.

As time in Peitermaritzburg expires and the educational season comes down to the end. I'm thanking God for three meals a day, I'm thanking God for good health care, I'm thanking God for an abstaining sexual lifestyle (meaning I don't have HIV/AIDS), I'm thanking God that He works in ways I DON'T understand. I'm thanking God that He is preparing me, readying me, breaking me down, unlayering me to the point of selfless exhaustion and fervent desire to make an impact in our community development opportunities that will be handed to us in just a couple more weeks. I'm thanking God for how tired I'm going to be from wanting to help so bad. All things I never did prior to Africa. My advice: thank God.

Let me just be real with you. I don't have it together and I don't have it figured out and I am NOT fearless and I AM a jerk.

Hi, my name is Ryan Birch, and I'm a Christian.

Your response: "HHHIiiiiiiI Ryyaaannnn"

But I tell you what. God does have it together, amidst the craziness of worldly suffering. God does have it figured out, amidst the doubts we also act off of. God IS fearless in the face of all things evil. God IS LOVE, amidst HIV/AIDS victims, the poor, the widowed wives or brothers, amidst the moments of breathlessness in hospitals. God is GOOD.

I love this MESSAGE translation of Matt 11:28-30:
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

So where I pick up from here is where I leave you off. I'm trying to get away with Christ and walk with Him. I feel like He's beside me, as I watch monkeys run past my classroom, do 7 page papers, listen to friends pour their hearts out in difficult situations, and especially in a laugh or two. South Africa is wrapping me up in the HERE AND NOW and I'm willing to go with that. I'm attempting to be apart of those "unforced rhythms of grace" and finding joy. Not a complacent, disregarding joy, but a joy that resides in knowing God more and more through all of the sorrow and all of the goodness at the same time.

Now that I've received a few defining moments upon my stay let me try this once again:

South Africa.

My humbling teacher. My rhythm of grace. My reality check.

I'm thinking God liked the idea of me coming here after all.