Home

The day James flew home and I flew north along the Pacific Coast to Portland, I stayed with friends who knew that I needed a bit more guidance through the geography of Washington than I had realized. I had arranged to spend Tuesday night at a cabin in the North Cascades, alright; but it turned out to be about 4½ hours from where I needed to be at 8:30 Wednesday morning. Like so many other times during our summer pilgrimage, I was given the better set of directions and sent on my way, not through Seattle as I had once thought, but through the Columbia River Gorge, north through Central Washington’s high mountain desert and to the foothills of the spectacular North Cascades.

That night in Wenatchee, I turned on the news and heard for the first time that there were forest fires raging in the mountains. That’s what all the forest service rangers were doing in the motel! I wondered, then, if I would need to change my plans and go to a different place. The next morning, after driving only 45 minutes, I arrived at the boat launch in Chelan. The fires were not in the Stehekin Valley, but I was to see the Domke Lake Fire, only 9 miles from the Stehekin Landing and spread to the shores of the lake by the time the Lady of the Lake Express passed by. Smoke that day had spread south to Chelan and filled the gorge that held the glacial lake upon which I sailed. Flames could be seen from the boat as we passed, and the smoke was thick in Stehekin Valley. I resigned myself to the likelihood that all I would see of the precipitous snow-capped mountains was the faint outline that appeared Wednesday afternoon. So I relaxed and read and wrote and prayed. I was also advised that the recommended climb for the area was McGregor Mountain, some 6,200 ft high from bottom to top with a seven mile trail that looked like it was drawn by a Geiger counter.

The sun rose to shine through clearing air and I felt more rested than I have for years. I was in a cabin with a canvass roof, a kerosene lantern for light and no electricity. I was covered with western blankets and just plain comfortable as a cool breeze passed across my face, welcoming me to the day with the aromas of sizzling bacon and cowboy coffee. How could I avoid dressing in hiking clothes and preparing my pack? After breakfast the shuttle bus came and delivered a few other hikers going various directions and me to High Bridge Camp, where a number of trails begin.

So I was off to reach toward a glaciered summit that placed majestically among others to compose some of the most rugged and awe-demanding land on the continent. A description of the day, with all its details deeply etched in my memory, would take thousands of megabytes to convey. What I will say about it, though, is that it was a physical challenge. The sites and my experiences exceeded my hopes. As I hiked higher and with each turn saw more of Creation’s raw beauty come to view I worried, “Well, this is it. The pilgrimage is almost over. This is supposed to be prayer time of my highest caliber; but is it? Will this take in all that Laura and I experienced through the summer as some kind of a gelling agent and somehow bring me closer to God?” You can’t program these things, you know. You just put yourself in the places where it might take place and then hope for the best.

I reached the trail’s end and went a bit higher above a snow field, just before a last scramble to the top which would have been a gamble to try because of the time it might take and the risk involved for a solo climber. After a lunch and some photos, I began the descent. I saw a column of smoke from the fire that still raged; it rose 33,000 ft. and created its own cumulus cloud. I descended further and stopped for some water and blueberries and drew in a deep breath of air. Then, in a song, I was overwhelmed with God’s presence. Just like that. It seemed the mountains, the small waterfalls and streams, the dancing clouds and all else before me shuddered in an act of praise. This is where the pilgrimage led.

The Heart of Restoration

Laura and I said, “Goodbye,” to the seminary community at John Wesley College on Monday, July 30, two weeks ago today. Then we watched the lights of Johannesburg from the sky as the South African Airways Airbus lifted from the earth; and after a middle-of-the-night refueling in Dakar, we rose again over the ocean and Africa was behind us. It felt to me as though I were leaving home.

That doesn’t mean that Africa had become my new home, or that I had decided to take up residence in South Africa. It rather means that my experience of home has expanded.

During the brief transition time between our return from South Africa and our pilgrimage to the West Coast I ran into two of our church members. I was afraid that my response to their question, “How was it?” would either be the trite “Incredible,” or an exercise of endless babble. There is so much to process. Yet, my more powerful awareness was of my inner joy of encountering members of my church family. I was home. It’s not that my world shrank back; but that here, too, is vital connection.

At the end of that week our daughter, Carrie arrived from Philadelphia with all her quick wit that can bring joy and challenge at the same time. I smiled inwardly as I watched the sister-brother banter resume and continue over the following week. Family time has been holy time. I posted a few pictures on the new “West Coast” public photo folder with a little concern that it might appear that the character of my sabbatical photo-journal might begin to appear as pictures of the family vacation. Never-the-less, family time has been sacred time; and brief as it was, it played on me for a reconstruction of the soul. Laura, Carrie, and James – the ones God placed in my life for dearest connection – came to make my heart recall itself. With them, I am home.

So we explored San Francisco, drove the winding roads up the Western Slope of the Sierra Nevada’s to Sequoia National Park, saw the big trees, and most importantly spent time together. Therein lay the adventure. And it was Sabbath, the heart of sabbatical, which is all about restoring wholeness and vitality. James and I climbed the heights to the High Sierra’s, to the pretty little Pear Lake tucked high in a cirque of towering summits. There we camped for two days in the wilderness and drank in God’s creation like the cool waters we filtered out of the lake. Sabbatical again – restoring the whole self again, as we connected with each other and together found connection with God.

I have now begun the last segment of this pilgrimage. This morning James flew east to Detroit; I flew north to Portland. Now comes a personal moment to take up a short hermitage and drink in the Spirit in the way I have found to be the most effective for me. I’ll pray and think long over the questions, of all the places we’ve seen and that which we’ve seen and heard, what is God saying? What does this mean for me? How does it refashion my soul? What implications might it have for the people I serve and the ministry of the Gospel we do? What do I now understand to be God’s vision for the world? How is this coming about and how do I – and we – either get with it or get in its way?

This is a day of solitude (a pair of airports and another new city to drive through in yet another rental to drive through it with, not-withstanding). Already, a realization has come to me. Perhaps I had it before and perhaps I could have come to it without thousands of miles in air travel and a good dose of a culture that was new to me. Yet, now I have it this way, and I’m certain that the realization means something more and deeper than it would have before.

The quest has been to take a pilgrimage to understand restorative justice. That’s something that is different from retributive justice, the kind with which most of us are most familiar. We think about justice and we automatically think only about proper punishment meted out for proper crimes. We think about injury and penalty. That’s retributive; an eye-for-an-eye, and all that. Retributive justice has its place; its necessary; but it isn't the only kind of justice and it isn't always the most appropriate or helpfull.

With the help of saints like Nelson Mandela and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa realized that retribution for hundreds of years of oppression and violence would only lead to years more of violence and oppression, only with opposing groups of people exchanging places. If the nation were to be healed, there had to be forgiveness. There had to be truth told, so that perpetrators could say, I’m sorry” and in that find their humanity restored and victims could find healing. There had to be a restoration of God’s love between peoples to the point that the riches of political power and the riches of the land would be shared and the liberty and sacred worth of all the tribes – African, European, and Asian – would be embraced and protected. Tutu says, “There is no future without forgiveness;” without forgiveness there is only continued strife. Restorative justice is this kind of justice.

South Africa is not done with the work. There is a long way to go in addressing the poverty and sharing the wealth and healing the brokenness of the nation. Yet, what they have accomplished so far has astounded the world. Having been among them for a while, it has astounded Laura and me.

In that astonishment is the insight: the heart of restoration is in relationship – when people who didn’t know each other before, only identified each other by categories before, make a connection with each other. It is when we are at home with each other – when we listen to each other and when we see each other as blessed ones, then our own souls are mended, and this world moves closer to the restoration of God’s undisputed realm.

Hope is Hope Once it has Flesh

HIV/AIDS is the scourge of the African Continent. An estimated 30 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa were infected with the disease by 2005. South Africa’s “share” of this crisis was 6.29 million, with 370,000 deaths. Those official figures translate into 30% of South Africa’s population; and since there has been widespread resistance to testing, some suggest that the actual figures could be far worse. In addition, T.B. has become the sister disease of AIDS, and has to be treated before AIDS is directly addressed, compounding the dilemma much further. All this has left South Africa with 1,500,000 orphans in 2005; according to projections, the figure will rise to about 2.5 million children left without a living parent by the year 2010.

The new government of South Africa had promised the people a new day of healing and justice, the lifting of the people from poverty: a new day of hope. Making good on those promises in short order would have been daunting, enough, given the task of undoing over 300 years of suppression, segregation, and injustice. In the face of that, new, very modest-but-livable housing (called, Mandela Houses) are being erected by the government. Electricity, water and sewage are being made accessible to an increasing portion of the population. The effort continues. Yet, HIV/AIDS compounds everything. The extent of illness and death works to generate overwhelming despair. One leader told us that a pastor’s time is essentially consumed by two demands: organizational meetings and conducting funerals. We have heard the concern of parents who recognize the vulnerability of their children. Adolescent experimentation with sex nowadays easily may result in death. The mushrooming number of child-led households threatens to block a generation of South Africans from options they might have had to gain a different life; it can become a lock to the door that would have led them out of poverty.

Overwhelming.

We discovered that the people of The Methodist Church of Southern Africa are not overwhelmed. Instead, they have a great resolve to address the needs with faithfulness and unrelenting determination. Their mission is clear: “God calls the Methodist people to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ for healing and transformation.” Their vision is equally focused: “A Christ-healed Africa for the healing of the nations.” The enormity of poverty and deadly disease does not discourage them; it presents the context in which they become a witness of God’s redemptive love and roll up their sleeves and get to work. They know what they have to do. They have developed a vigorous response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, calling for all active clergy to take continuing education which will provide the understandings and tools needed to minister to people for prevention, treatment, spiritual care and losses associated with the disease. A class on AIDS and ministry is now a required part of each ministerial candidate’s seminary education.

Laura and I spent a day with the professor of that course. Rev. Dr. Dimitris Palos was an activist in the anti-apartheid movement, having served on the South Africa Council of Churches while Archbishop Desmond Tutu was General Secretary. He became the architect of the denomination’s HIV/AIDS ministry initiative during the last several years. Now that the ministry is in place, he is focusing his work more locally through Bryanston Methodist Church in Johannesburg in addition to his teaching responsibilities. His experience and expertise, along with the warmth of his compassion would have filled the day with inspiration and learning for us if we had simply stayed in his office.

Dimitris is not, however, one to stay in an office. He soon had us in his car, driving to Diepsloot, a township that has developed in more recent years on the City’s northwest side. Townships can spring up, almost virtually over-night. People without homes may find room on a vacant field, build a shack out of any material that can be found, then register for squatter’s rights and become established. Then, as communities develop, the government begins to address permanent housing needs, delivers services such as electricity, water, and sewage. Dimitris drove us a bit through the township, which is nestled in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains of the High Veldt, which looks like the terrain in parts of Montana or the American Southwest. It now has over 100,000 residents, half of whom are unemployed and many have AIDS

He turned into the Dieplsoot Community Project, a ministry in which Bryanston Methodist Church has a share. We entered a large new structure. Most of the space was open area designed for children’s ministry programs: after school, play-production, etc. To the outside was an expansive field being developed for sporting activities such as soccer and field hockey. Inside, we entered a partitioned area filled with sewing tables, machines and several women at work. This was Themba (a Zulu word meaning hope and trust), a “hope in action” ministry designed to enable people in Dieplsoot to become self-sufficient through skills training and assistance with equipment to start up businesses. They produce beautiful work made available for sale: quilted textiles; beaded ornaments, jewelry, and tableware; and other sewn items. So much volunteer time and effort is invested in the work.

Perhaps it’s better to say that the people of the church are becoming invested in the people of the community. They are changing life. They are changing the world. They are the presence of hope in Christ that has been made present in the flesh.

This is also what we discovered when, a week before, we visited the Methodist City Mission in Tshwane (Pretoria). Like Dimitris’ work, this HIV/AIDS ministry is employed in a comprehensive manner. A clinic operates in partnership with other organizations (and receives some The United States funding). It is staffed by a medical doctor-director and nurses who assess persons infected with the AIDS virus and then treat them with appropriate medication. Additionally, they are taught to care for themselves to maintain health through proper nutrition and other life style practices. Many who come to the Center are also infected with tuberculosis, which in Africa is a usual “opportunistic disease” which needs to be treated before medications that address the AIDS can be employed. This clinic is a part of a larger system the Center has put in place, which offers: spiritual care for AIDS patients and their families; social services; assistance in becoming registered with personal identification required to receive government assistance; testing for AIDS; and residential care for those who have been discharged from the hospital, yet need special attention before returning to home.

A church leader told me that South Africa is to the rest of Africa what the United States is to the world: a beacon of hope for freedom and equality. There are significant obstacles that could well discourage the people away from living out that role. Yet, I look at the lively worship, filled with joy expressed in song, dance, and fervent prayer. I see the dedication of such people as Dimitris Palos and the many pastors and pastors-in-training and educators and lay volunteers who work day-in and day-out to love the people. Then, I see that Methodists in Southern Africa have chosen not to hide under the covers. Instead, they are on the front line of ministry. As a result, I have seen them embody the hope which they proclaim.

Hope that is simply spoken is only a wish. Hope that indwells the flesh through vision, focused mission and effort is hope. When you apply that, person-to-person: that is love.