May It All Be True

Dan Allender January 10 2012 - 1 Comment

We had this privilege to be with colleagues and friends at the funeral of their son Jackson Brave Bauman just a few weeks before Christmas. I sat with my wife in a lovely church with mourners who had come together for the sole sake of grieving with Christy and Andrew. Jackson Brave Bauman, their son, died before taking his first breath. He was perfect, except his heart stopped beating. His mother and father began the service carrying his teeny coffin down the aisle to the communion table where a plump brown bear, a toy meant to greet his arrival into this world, stood somber awaiting his departure to the earth.

Everything about death is wrong. Everything. It is wrong even when an aged body that has lived well and suffered enormously dies; even when it is supposedly best to let go of this life—death is wrong. But it strikes the heart, as obscene, a mockery of all that is good and full of hope to see the body of a child dead.

On each side of the communion table was a picture of Brave. In one photo his grieving mother and father held their beautiful, perfect boy. On the other side, his body shot from the angle of the head downwards was as if looking at a slumbering doll.

We sat near the back of the church and I neither attempted to look around, nor could I stare exclusively at my feet. I occasionally took in both photos and the waiting bear. Each time I looked at the family portrait, I started to cry; when I looked at his sleeping body I wanted to rage. I felt like a metronome of grief and blasphemy.

I love Andrew; I only know Christy from a few conversations. I like many had anticipated the immensity of goodness this young couple would soon know. My last words to Andrew about the coming birth were to remind him that Brave was about to ruin his life and he would never, excepting a few, regret the ruin because the joy he would know in being a father and allowing his son to father him through Jesus would make every loss and heartache worth infinitely more than the suffering.

I had no idea how deep was the truth and lie of what I said. Is his death worth the agony and loss they will suffer for a lifetime? Is the privilege of being the one to carry him and watch him grow in the womb that became his tomb infinitely worth more than the suffering they will bear? To say, yes, is not mine to write. To say it is possible is only to speak of the remarkable hearts of his mother and father. It is possible that in a year, or a decade, their loss will be part of the scars they come to treasure as an emblem of the day they will be introduced and restored to their son.

I only know how they grieved and spoke of their son. The service lasted over two hours. I have never been in an event where I did not know if I could bear one more minute; even more, I did not know how I could ever endure it’s ending. The words spoken by their pastors, friends and family, their doula, and the pastor who married them held little hope. They spoke for us all grief, confusion, anger, and above all the agony we felt for Christy and Andrew. They also spoke of the immense beauty of Brave and the courage of Andrew and Christie to hold, love, and cherish their little boy. There were moments in the accounting of his birth and the time of his advent when laughter incisively creased the sorrow—their humanity was not merely heroic, it was life giving.

Mom and Dad sat on the floor below their son’s casket and we each, row by row, came to the front to place a flower on his casket and kneel to hold and touch his mother and father. Their faces were raw with exhaustion and silhouetted in sorrow. They wept, at times wailed. What was spoken over them and for them, for us, was a sorrow that didn’t deny resurrection, nor did it offer a hope to assuage the part of us that simply can’t bear hearing the body wail.

The resurrection is the hope that allows our heart to bear a portion of the wail, courageously enough not to mitigate the horror, nor deny the hideous wrong of death. It is what I understand it to mean that we do not grieve as unbelievers do. Believing grief is meant to be deeper and angrier and more full of confusion than unbelieving sorrow. We must engage God who can and will give comfort; and could also have healed the heart of their son. How do we go to a God who offers comfort when the same God could have enabled the Bauman’s to escape the current need if only death had been swallowed by life?

At the end of the service, Christy and Andrew spoke. It may have been the bravest public utterances I have ever heard. Christy began by saying, “In the last 3 days, we have aged 20 years.” We sat in awe as they each spoke of their love for their son and their cry to their community to not forget Brave. Neither offered us relief from the anguish, except in their goodness to grieve, full faced, raw, and unashamed. It was their stark and utter human beauty that made the loss not merely deep, but unbearable. The beauty and horror of their agony was too compelling to escape.

And what I found myself saying, again and again, then and today: What if this is all a carefully staged fable? What if nothing of this is true? And at one level, even more disconcerting, what if the gospel is truer than I can comprehend; what if it is truer than truth?

Soon after the advent of Jesus his mother and father fled to Egypt to escape the murderous envy of Herod. His soldiers had been told to take the life of any male child two years or younger. Mothers all over Bethlehem held the bodies of their sons and wailed. Did the story happen just as it is told? I believe it did. I heard the sound of a single mother wailing to know it is true. I know it now. I know how my body heaves and the limbic system floods my brain with both aversion and bonding in the presence of beautiful boy’s death face.

Is it all true or a mere fable? Am I willing to bet my death and far more my life on a savior being born in Bethlehem and the advent of a new kingdom that seems palsied and powerless before such loss? This is what I believe. I saw a kind of humanity and goodness in the wailing that is truer to life than the pleasantness I encounter in most religious settings. I saw a beauty and care for life in the honor that baby boy received in talking about his face, hands, and the dreams of his mom and dad than I see at the height of celebrations of graduation or other accolades of honor.

I don’t know how they will ever be able to enter another advent season and function in the flurry of holiday busyness and rush to get a last minute gift. But I know this—the agony of those mothers and fathers who lost a son to the cruelty of death will never be lost to them. And the hope that the Christ-child will return and ride a white steed to introduce them to their man-child Brave, will mark them each Christmas until the day they die.

I can’t hold their grief as if it is my own. I will not remember each Christmas in the same way as they will and as those who walked each step of this Via Dolorosa of their suffering. But in remembering his death, I am again called to weep and to cry out in desire, no, desperation—May it all be true, Prince of Peace, turn our wailing one day into joy. Make my heart as human and beautiful as Brave’s mother and father. Turn our broken hearts to you. Turn our hope to your risen Presence. Tell us again the story of your birth, death, resurrection, and ascension and in the midst of grief bring us the scandalous joy that only your loyal love can provide. We confess you alone are our life and story.

JoePa and Sermon Selection

Dan Allender November 14 2011 - 9 Comments

Years ago, I was invited to a Presbytery of a Pentecostal denomination to talk about sexual abuse. It was an odd invitation. I am not often invited into Pentecostal circles and I am never invited to address Pastors on the topic of sexual abuse. I could not resist. I was not disappointed.

There were approximately 50 men, no women. They ranged in age from mid twenties to early seventies, and one octogenarian. The total number of years of ministry averaged about 23 per person—let me do the math for you. They had conjointly served 1150 years in ministry and likely preached (highly conservative estimate of once per week for 40 weeks a year) 46,000 sermons. Anyone who knows a bit about Pentecostal churches knows that it is more likely 50 weeks a year and several sermons a week but that would be over 100,000 sermons and someone might think with that figure that I am exaggerating. (Heaven forbid)

I told them that I was immensely gratified to be there and it was a rare and delightful privilege. And then I asked them for a show of hands as to who had preached a sermon that addressed sexual abuse that year. Not one hand. I asked about the last decade. Two hands. I asked in the history of their ministry and I had eight hands. I calculated the total number of sermons that had been preached on sexual abuse—12. (Two men had preached on the topic twice.) I’ll bore you with the percentage: .00026.

I, then asked them to consider why that was the case. The reasons were at times full of self-righteousness and others were suffused in guilt and self-incrimination. It took us 15 minutes for them to digest the immensity of what they were discovering: virtually no one talks about sexual abuse.

I then asked how many had preached on the story of Tamar. Hands all around the room shot up. I didn’t do an accurate hand-by-hand count but I’d say the majority of hands were up. I feared what I discovered. I obviously did this to make a point, but the data was brutal. A group of fifty men had (except for a handful) had never preached on the topic of sexual abuse, yet most had preached on the story of Tamar.

I had them react to what I had done and many felt duped and others felt profoundly exposed. One man said, “Well if you had told us that the story of Tamar was one of sexual abuse, then we would have known what you were asking the first time.” I pushed back and said, “If I hit you in the face and then asked if I had done something violent, would you need for me to define violence?” It is so obvious that to define the term sexual abuse in the context of Tamar would assault the intelligence of the hearer; unless, we refuse to name any assault against our face as violent.

How in God’s name could a room of bright, godly, good men (where no woman is allowed to venture or speak) not see the story of Tamar as one of sexual abuse? I am still, a decade later, unnerved by their not connecting the dots.

Then comes the story of Joe Paterno and his failure to deal with the assault of a boy(s) in his cherished locker room. I don’t wish to vilify Paterno. I don’t know the story. I likely will never know. But how a man can assault a child in the late nineties and not have it come out to a public exposure until 2011 and still sustain Paterno’s implicit support in the accused abuser’s non profit and for the man to be able to work out and take showers in the same locker room is more egregious than I can fathom?

That is until I remember my time with the Presbytery. We simply don’t talk about or engage the issues of sexual abuse in polite company, especially in the realm of good ol’ boy cultures. One will never make it up the ranks of any male culture—church, sports teams, military, police, etc. if you talk about the reality of perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse.

I am only too aware that all those realms have women involved to one degree or another, but most are still considered male dominated cultures that let women in only by the skin of their teeth. One only needs to look at how seldom sexual assault is reported in the military and what happens when it is to know that we live in a vastly silent and sexually abusive culture that refuses to tell the truth and take the truth to the bone to marrow consequences when it is know.

Let me tell you, then about my sense of what will happen with JoePa. He will apologize; he already has done so. His place in the refined world of super coaches will be preserved and it is likely an honor that should not be taken from him. But I doubt to my bones that he will come out and talk about his own cowardice or his own history of past abuse, or his wife’s—or someone close to him like a mother or father. I promise someone near him has been abused and whether that has directly silenced him or only unwittingly kept him quiet, I don’t know. But I know that everyone in America is relating directly and intimately with at least one person who has been sexually abused. And damn it, we don’t talk about it.

A friend said: “Maybe the publicity related to this will be the moment that men begin to name it for themselves and their institutions.” Maybe. Most days I can only smile and say, “I’ll pray.”

Let me take a bit of a turn. Why should you preach on sexual abuse from Tamar and many other passages? Why should the words sexual abuse be uttered in the presence of children and adults, the young and the aged? The answer: the bible tells these stories and it doesn’t discriminate on the issue of age, social position, or false propriety. But what we do know is that a number of the elders, deacons, and leading givers in the church have abused and/or been abused. Certainly, some of their wives have been abused. And all hell will break forth if you take on a topic of such loaded, societal and personal consequences. It isn’t the issue of not being popular, like preaching on tithing; it is potentially a job ending sermon or series. The cost of crossing the line to join the abused—especially the abused who go to church to never hear or have to address portions of their past brought to the surface is eviction. To violate their shame-held sanctity, or the purity of the pulpit and the glory filled white pews is anathema. We simply do not talk about things like that in our church. Period. But Jesus loves the little children and even those dirty and sexually impure people who do terrible things. But nevertheless, we don’t break the code; not here, not on Sunday morning.

Why should we talk about sexual abuse? In church? During a sermon?

Evil is winning the vast struggle of sexuality and its kingdom advances when good men refuse to name, let alone address its work. When we are silent, evil takes up the platform and its message is death.

Evil hates the glory of God. It hates human beings because we reveal the glory of God through gender. The war for the human heart is fought on the terrain of gender. Evil wishes to destroy the pleasure and honor of being male and female and will not stop doing so until we utterly fail to reveal God’s glory.

If the glory of God is revealed through ‘male and female, he made us in the image of God’, then we must enter this war and discussion by doing vastly better than inviting people to prescribed gender roles that makes Christians look like they are stuck in the 1950’s. We must, at least, name what evil does to ruin our bodies through shame and contempt, especially through the pervasive assault of sexual abuse.

We need to develop a theology of sexuality that says NO not merely to immorality and sexual sin, but to all violations of human sexuality and dignity—especially abuse, rape, date-rape, sexual violations in marriage, pornography, prostitution, and sex slavery. This ought not be seen as a risky, irrelevant, or social ill that is not germane to the gospel.

One last thought—Penn State is going to be devastated with phenomenal losses due to victim settlements. Penn State is not going to want these victims to go to civil courts and begin the process of corporate disclosure of the systemic buffoonery, neglect or dereliction to the highest levels of their institution. It would cost them tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, lost donor support, and the inevitable ill will that prolonged court battles tend to create.

They will settle for a pretty penny. And so will you. When abuse in your church is discovered and an attorney asks you for your policy to address sexual abuse accusations in your church and you say, “We don’t have one.” When the deposition begins to roll and you are asked why you didn’t report a suspected situation of abuse and you can’t truthfully answer: “He is a powerful force in our church and I ‘d have lost my job if I even intimated that I was concerned.” It will not go well. Not for you, or for your church. No one needs to tell me that these are dark and dangerous waters. Having been accused of many things (not child sexual abuse) that could have ended my ministry I am only too aware of the power of the tribunal of the public, blogs, and the reality that the accused is guilty in the media until proven innocent and by the time innocence is declared, it doesn’t matter because the reputation, life, family, and health of the accused is ruined.

Evil wins on both sides of the aisle and it takes as much joy from one form of harm as the other. We are not to move precipitously to develop policy or change our sermon plans in the next day.

But will you schedule a sermon on sexual abuse before June of 2012?

Will you ask an attorney in your church or community how to develop a plan that is approved by the board/elders if suspicions occur about sexual abuse in your church family?

Will you pray and ask several mature and godly women, who are unafraid to be honest and are sensitive to the realities of their world–are we a culture where sexual violations—apparently small and egregious as double-entendre’s to sexual abuse could occur?

I have given up much hope for my generation to address these issues. We are mostly too close to retirement and too comfortable in our positions to risk the fire fight necessary to make this more than an occasional cultural flame that shoots up bright and hideous for a moment, but assuredly will go back to the shadows. But maybe it is one of many issues, those in the twenties and thirties will demand we face and name in order to retain our integrity. If not, there are hungry lawyers waiting to be used as Babylon to bring us to our knees.

May we listen well rather than be forced into exile with JoePa.

Distractive Stories

Dan Allender July 25 2011 - 1 Comment

I am currently in a maelstrom. The details of the story can’t be told, but it involves the heartache of being caught in a family drama of dementia-driven paranoia and complex decisions attenuated by divided loyalties and fear. I am an only son, an only child. And the winds ripped me out of bed at 4 AM as if I had been sucked up into a tornado.

I couldn’t fall back to sleep and so I rose to the promise of a new morning. What I knew to the depths of my soul and toes is that I needed to pray. I brewed a pot of coffee and as it percolated I turned on my computer that is set to the home page of MSNBC. As I stood waiting for my early morning inoculation to reality, I began to read what I discovered to be another form of inoculation—the daily stories of tragedy that litter the first page of the website. Today it is the horror of a gunmen killing 84 children in Norway. And the political imbroglio of the chess match over extending the debt ceiling.

I would be horrified if what I write trivializes either story. The death of 84 innocent children by what appears to be a right-wing Christian is beyond heartbreaking. The darkness is palpable in the first inklings of what occurred on that island. In a far different way, the war over philosophy and implementation of the American dream is deeply disconcerting. As I read both articles in the time it took to pour my first cup of coffee, I found that my focus and attention was far from what awakened me. And oddly, my soul no longer felt the necessity to breathe prayer; instead, I was lost in the dark stories of others.

I know people (in fact I do but I am also referring to myself) who watch the news every night for little more than confirmation their lives are not as bad as they could be. I am aware these people, including me, watch for more than this motive, but why would anyone watch a nightly national or local news cast when the information can be attained on-line, often with more information and analysis?

Simply said, it is for many a ritual of rubber-necking—a staring at the accident we pass, perhaps to pray for those harmed, but also to thank God we were not caught in the web of disaster this time. It is an axiom in the news industry—if it bleeds, it leads. And with the phenomena of the 24-hour news cycle, the same news has to be played again and again, with a few salient facts or ‘firsts’ discovered due to the investigative, or intrusive storytelling of the news.

Nightly news is located in 30 minute drive-bys, but CNN and Fox news is a commitment to build a portable amphitheatre around the death of a 4-year old girl whose mother fails to tell authorities for 31 days that she had disappeared. I know the story—the story as told by the media, influenced by the career aspirations of the prosecutor and the defense attorney, the pundits, and the reporters who search for any detail that might add something new to the endless cycle of repetition. This story is a tragedy, but why did it take our national attention for over two-years? It was reported that one pundit gained 30% market share by returning to this story ad nauseam. Is that fact true? Or is it another story embedded in a story that is hidden as fact that may or may not be true, but turns the process into falling down a rabbit hole into a deranged world where truth is optional and appearance is all that matters.

It is human tragedy sold as soap. The news is seldom about the complex texture of truth; it is merely a product that some purveyor is offering to gain market share. But far more troubling than the underbelly of market capitalism, the news is a look into the human condition that distracts us from having to look at our own plight. Might it be vicarious suffering to help distract us from our own? Or perhaps, it is as much watching others suffer the darkness of the human condition to remind us that we are living far better lives.

We may have trouble with our kids and thought about sending them to Siberia, but always said with a smile and a congenial laugh. Why are we drawn to family comedies, films, and novels that portray a family far more bizarre and broken than our own? Our family loves the Chevy Chase Christmas and Summer Vacation movies. It makes our holidays and trips seem normal. And why would we be drawn to the Royal Tannenbaums? Their brokenness is darker than ours (perhaps) and yet redemption comes for them—might it still come for us?

We need stories as much as our bodies need the sustenance of bread and wine. And we are daily inundated by stories that are not ours that are an antidote and a distraction from either our suffering or the absence of mystery and wildness.

For generations we have been intrigued by the oddity of the circus, the wild animals, the erotic and sequined riders, and the sketchy, vagabond handlers. We may even wonder if there is a vet who couldn’t finish school who is in a triangulated relationship with the owner’s wife. The Circus is a three-ringed narrative that for a few bucks one can visit to relieve the tedium of a ‘normal’ life.

I know people who read fiction for the same reason. A novel, however, takes much longer than a half-hour news broadcast to digest. A novel must be far more than a point of comparison or a passing accident; it must intrigue, unnerve us to tears and make us howl with the laughter of recognition. It must fill us with life to hold our attention over many hours. Fill us with life—why is it that so often, it is the stories of others that holds my attention, whether it is in the form of the evening news, or a good film or compelling novel?

Fill me with life Jesus. Fill me with your life, Jesus. It was that plea that broke the spell of MSNBC. The coffee had already begun to turn tepid in my cup when I heard the cry rise within me. I was lost to my story, captured by the distraction of other stories and lost to the One whose story is life.

I tore away from the news and entered my heartache through the morning prayer of John Eldredge. I have used this plea many times over the years and yet I was stopped this time by a simple phrase. He writes:

“You alone are Life, and you have become my life. I renounce all other gods, all idols, and I give you the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. I confess here and now that it is all about you, God, and not about me. You are the Hero of this story, and I belong to you.”

This story? What Story? The answer is simple: all stories. But I am not part of all stories even if the news gives me the possibility of being nearly omnipresent. And if I subscribe to one of the pundits of the left or right, I can come presumptively close to being omniscient. But what I can never come close to encountering no matter how many stories I read, see, or hear—I can never be omnipotent, let alone omnipresent or omniscient. I am not God. I am barely the human I was meant to be. But far more, than which story, it is Jesus who is the hero of every story, most particularly my own.

Prayer is an invitation not merely for God to join our story, calamity or maelstrom. It is as well an orienting that positions us to see that our story as the unfolding of his drama, his life for us. I am not simply the son who must figure out what to do. He is the hero who is living and breathing in this story and inviting me to join him for the sake of righteousness. I don’t know what to do. He does. I don’t know what he wants, but I get to listen. Ponder. Ask. Submit. Learn. Suffer. Grow. Grieve and celebrate. I get to participate and watch. Unlike the stories on the news or in novels, I get to both stand back and watch the unfolding of the drama and jump in to the maelstrom and feel the dark winds whip at my face.

I know for certain by how this story is unfolding I will not be the hero, the one to rescue another. I may not be rescued as I desire, let alone help those I wish desperately to save. But no matter how it progresses as I turn the next page, I never have been nor will I ever be the true hero. Jesus is my life; he is my breath, and my salvation—then, now, and soon.

It seemed like such an enormous decision to pray rather than submit to the distractive allure of other stories. Once the extraction occurred, it seemed so obvious and good. My heart was alive and ready to make a series of phone calls that could easily take hours. But I heard Jesus ask a simple question: Do you like your computer’s start up page? I nearly fell off the couch. You mean do I want my computer to boot MSNBC every time I click on the internet? Oh, my. I mean I am open to take you seriously this morning because I am desperate, but as the course of my life? I don’t know. I should know. I know the right answer, but my distractions are what buffer me from the cold, dark stories that often blow through my life.

I changed my homepage to http://www.biblegateway.com.

Heroes, Danger, Goodness and Prostituted Women

Dan Allender May 31 2011 - 3 Comments

There is an ache for heroes, danger, and goodness and it is found uniquely in our day caring for exploited men and women and children. I need to make several confessions before proceeding into this entry. First, I believe we desperately need people who rise, in fact, tower, above the mendacity and mediocrity of our day. I asked a group of Pastors (5) how many in their church they would consider to be passionately and irrevocably committed to the Kingdom of God and all its privileges, responsibilities, and calling. Each looked at me like I was demented. I figured it was because I seemed to be questioning their integrity or the goodness of their flock. In fact, it was because they knew the numbers were so low it boggles incredulity. One said, “I have a congregation that regularly has 600 at Sunday worship and I’d answer about 10-20.” The others agreed the numbers were that low in each of their congregations.

I do not wish to digress about whom we see as worth our admiration—sports figures, Christian rock stars—celebrities in the fields of music, ministry, and words, and people with mega-millions. It is a rant that I have neither the energy nor interest to sustain. However, I do know my heart needs heroes—men and women who have lived with imaginative abandon and foolish savvy to build the Kingdom of heaven on earth. A hero is an ordinary person who seizes the opportunity to step into the maelstrom to rescue, to care for those caught in the dark cruelty of their situation. It could be an ordinary motorist who sees a car turned over in the ditch and the early flames of disaster licking at the spent fuel on the ground, who stops and rushes to the car to find trapped children and their mother. He risks his well being to offer rescue. Later, when told he is a hero, he looks startled and a bit chagrined and says, “Nope. I just did what anyone would do in that situation.” A hero sees their act not as one of bravery and choice; instead, it is a divine necessity put upon them because they were granted the privilege of being there before anyone else was on the scene. Every hero is too frightened to feel heroic and too focused to ponder long whether they should act.

I need heroes because the church seems so often tragically associated with rich bozos who own radio stations and predict the coming of Jesus in May or October, 1994 or 2011 or whenever, whatever. I cringe as the most recent absurdity that takes the focus of the news delivers our ‘message’ in the clothes of a clown. I simply need to know that someone is doing more than merely furthering their career or bearing the slings and arrows of the common complaints that are no more worthy to be addressed than a kind and gentle invitation—I plead with you to grow-up.

I need to know that the gospel actually takes a few men and women into realms of danger and goodness to offer life when all that exists is death. I need Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie Ten Boom. It is good to know such men and women existed on this earth—but I am a hungry man who needs to know face to face someone who enters darkness with little regard for the naysayers or the voices of reason. I met her this past week. I actually met many such women and a few men this last week at the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution conference.

A second confession is that I believe anyone unaware or untroubled by human trafficking and prostitution is similar to the baker whose shop was outside of Dachau and who said when interviewed, “I had no idea such a terrible thing was happening.” It defies incredulity. It is not only impossible; it is the utter loss of human dignity as a shining lie is held unto as more precious than the darkest truth. We have well passed the hour when Christians can say, “I just didn’t know. I thought it was happening in Asia or Africa, but not in my home town.”

Prostitution exists in every nook and cranny of our land. The average age of a prostituted women entering the ‘life’ is 13. Not one prostitute enters fully of her own volition, or untouched by sexual harm and exploitation well before she turns her first trick. And it is the same all over the world—the church condemns and turns away in self-satisfied self-righteousness.

10 Years ago, due to the arrest of my 16 year old daughter for alcohol possession and her eventual decision to return to faith, and the subsequent decision to go to Siberia to work in an orphanage, she learned that many of her ‘girls’ would leave only to become trapped in the sex slave trade industry. She returned angry and as an advocate. I listened and was too busy to do anything other than to feel sad. In turn, she hooked my wife and my wife awakened me, literally by her tears often at night, and metaphorically by reminding me that my central calling is to sexually exploited and damaged people. It might seem obvious that I’d see the connection, but I am a coward and slow to dawn on the obvious when I am afraid.

And for 10 years I have been cautiously putting my toe in these dark waters—teaching and interacting with front line care givers who put their lives, reputations, and hearts on the line each and every day to go where few dare to enter. And then I facilitated a small group for 4 women who chose to consider the impact of their own story on their decision to enter the realm of human trafficking.

I met Cara, Renee, xxx, and Kimberly. I met four heroes. I will only introduce you to one, in part, because she is the only one so far to put her story into print. Now let me come clean as to the purpose of this blog—buy her book. This is not a book review or endorsement—it is a plea. Her name is Kimberly Smith and the title of the book is Passport Through Darkness (David C. Cook, 2011). Her website is MakeWayPartners.org.

Milton and Kimberly were missionaries in Spain when they discovered the reality of human trafficking near their home. They got involved and the trafficker threatened the life of their children. It rocked their worlds and rechanneled their labor. It also ruined their capacity to turn away and remain quiet.

Kimberly weaves an intricate and raw story of honesty and struggle with heartbreaking elegance. She is led to start an orphanage in war-torn, godforsaken Sudan. All the voices of reason said it was utterly impossible since the closest supplies were nearly a thousand miles away and only 3 miles of paved roads existed in that infrastructure barren land. And that was the least of her troubles. The Janjaweed, the militant Muslim raiders killed, raped, and stole at random. Pirates and thieves paroled the battered dirt roads. There was no one on the ground, but one man, a Sudanese Lost Boy who was caring for hundreds of orphans who had to sleep in trees to avoid being eaten by hyenas and lions during the night.

And Kimberly decided to build an orphanage and to do so without her husband. The story is mind-boggling. Milton who is a type one diabetic simply could not accompany her to Sudan. He remained behind to care for their kids and provide financial and ministry support. When I read of his courage to let his wife follow the calling of God, I wept. Actually, I swore and wept. How could this be God’s plan? How could God ask a husband and wife who adored each other and found strength and solace to make such a demanding, and at times, what I felt to be an unbiblical decision? I raged simply at the thought that God could separate my wife and I –or call us to danger, or even extremity. It is too much. But then I read on. And what I thought might turn into a lovely story of God shows up, riding on a white steed, his blue passport in hand, the sword of righteousness and mercy in the other, didn’t occur. Instead, the story turns from momentary offerings of goodness and love to the dark reality that no one can stop the daily carnage of starvation, disease and human cruelty. But somehow this frail reed didn’t get broken or the flickering candle allowed to be snuffed out. That alone is incomprehensible. But far more than that, the story is not merely about doing good as the earth totters and seems to come off its hinges. It is a story of redemption—the story of Kimberly and Milton. The story has so many layers and complexity it felt like I was reading a novel. But it is not—it is hauntingly true.

She writes,

Once asleep, I often dreamed of children scrambling up trees to claim their branches for the night—safe from hyenas. The next morning reality would break in with the sun as I bandaged orphans from wild dog attacks or stitched their split foreheads from falling out of the high bough of their tree bed. Or worse yet, I counted the missing children of who we would find no remains.

Living this life with orphans made it easy for me to understand we must build safe housing for them, regardless of the risks or cost. It is not such an easy leap for those who don’t hear the cackle, wipe off the blood, sew up the skin, or count the MIA orphans the morning after. Those who haven’t seen or heard the orphan’s life tend to rationalize the expense per unit, per square foot against the fear of war potentially destroying their investment: a building.

I have looked into this woman’s eyes and she knows the mystery of death and resurrection. Do I? Am I far more caught up in the cost and the practicality of my calling or the holiness of being a witness and a presence for those who have little or no hope?

Let me tell you the sequence of events of reading her book. I met Kimberly in my small group. I knew only a few hazy portions of her story. I had not read her book. But what I met in that group was a passionate, brilliant, sensitive and wild woman who had had more than a few experiences of taking on or at least encountering strong, opinionated Christian male leaders. It would be unethical to tell a single iota of the time with her and the other three. But suffice it to say, she knows her story—up to a point. And when we reached the point where it would cost her dearly to name and enter domains of heartache that seemed too severe to suffer, she entered that dark realm with eyes blazing (at me) and mostly at the evil one. She is a warrior who simply will not forsake the call to destroy all forms of darkness. She is a prophetess who will not settle for truth for others and a form of livable truth for her self. To be in the group was to watch a valiant woman take on evil and come out dirty, bloody and triumphant.

And then I read her book on the flight home. I began weeping in the first half hour and I was mesmerized and captured for 5 hours straight. The book haunted me. Here is a woman who is willing to hear hard truth about her own story from a total stranger with no trust, no history, and no basis for considering my words. And she struggled, fought against, and debated those issues with me in the group, finding for herself the true truth uniquely meant for her heart. And though that took courage, I later read she has been to the cruelest heart of darkness on this earth and found the passion to rise and suffer the stories of hell for another day.

What does it mean to be a kingdom of God hero? Enter darkness, especially your own. Enter that darkness with sufficient humility that it can only be called foolishness. And to the degree you find the bright and beautiful light of the kindness of God, then take that light to the darkest world that God calls you to enter and then let the voracious winds of hell try and suffocate the minuscule light you offer in his name. Come to see if you find God to be real, true, and good.

There are matters of my heart that I have been too frightened to name and hold as central to my calling. The particulars are not relevant at this moment. In reading A Passport through Darkness and gazing into the daunting, playful, death-knowing and resurrection believing eyes of Jesus it is time for me to say, “I must build an orphanage.”

Giddy-up

Dan Allender April 04 2011 - 3 Comments

It was not meant to happen.  I sat down in front of the television and intended to watch the last bit of the news before going up to bed to read.  The news ended and the programming turned to a local travel show.  I was also multi-tasking as I traversed the Internet on an aimless search that occasionally bumped into something intriguing but I flitted from screen to screen in a vacuum.

I knew something was wrong.  There were pulses of energy that were met with a brain freeze that stymied any thoughtful decisions.  I sat and watched the next show which was the day’s accounting of the foibles, errata, and boggling idiocy of our most salacious stars.  I sucked this down with shame but I didn’t turn my eyes.  Soon the programming brought a silly family show about a family that is written to resemble my own but sufficiently bizarre that I can feel secure that we are not that abnormal.  Another show passed, then another.  I was caught in the hypnotic glow of the interplay of the sound on the television and the passing websites explored for little more than the initial intrigue of the home page.

I knew I was wasting away the night.  I had email to finish, a novel I was enjoying; I could join my wife in bed, sleep, if I only chose to get up, but instead I surrendered to the darkness of banality.  When NCIS came on, I watched the entire show though I could have predicted each line and nuance of the drama.  I then went to the perambulation of the remote and clicked through the channels in a final frenzy of boredom.  When the late local news came on it was a signal that I had gamboled away nearly 5 hours of my life in the seduction of nothingness.  I felt like crap.  I binged and I felt dirty, stupid, and empty.  Debauchery comes in many forms.

The next day I blew it off as a need to chill out.  No big deal.  But there was a film over my heart and I felt neither freedom, anticipation, or goodness about the day.  It is in moments like this I have far too often ignored the ache, dismissed the greasy presence over me, in me, as an inevitability of living in a fallen world.  Buck it up, partner, throw your leg over the saddle and mosey on to round up the little doggies.  I am a professional soul herder and not every day is lively or lovely.  For whatever reason, this day was different.  Jesus smacked my steed and I was left standing before him and I heard him say, “How about you and I sitting for a while?” 

Most of the time I am fond of Jesus.  I like to engage the one I read about in the B-I-B-L-E. I know he is God.  I know he is human and I love to watch and think about the manner in which he traverses the dirt and uneven terrain of Palestine.  I just don’t like him interrupting my day too often, especially when the conversation is going to be about me, or us.  I am linked to a tradition of cessationists that are comfortably assured that the gifts of the Spirit that showed up in Bible days ceased when the Apostolic era ended.  One can never trust the level of disorder those unruly gifts might create unless the Apostles are present to clean up the mess and toss out the imposters with impeccable wisdom.  I don’t recall the other reasons I am not allowed to believe in the gifts of the Spirit but it has made my life far less complicated and more lonely. 

Nevertheless, he smacked my horse’s rear and I stood alone before him and he moseyed me to sit next to him. How do you prefer to receive this story?  Metaphor? Illustration?  Dream sequence?  Or in my mind’s eye, I saw him dressed like a cowboy and he hit my horse and I stood before Jesus and he sat on his haunches and invited me to sit.  I did.  But I’m not limber enough to do anything other than sit on my derriere.  Now the rest of the discussion I will distill into content and not tire you with the process.  It didn’t last terribly long—about a half hour.  You are certainly welcome to dismiss this story as exaggeration, narcissistic hubris, or if you know portions of my story a chemically-induced, imaginative flash-back to a by-gone era.  Whatever it was, whatever he is, I was unnerved. 

The central question he asked was not what I expected.  It seldom is.  He wanted to know why I found the glory he offers me so troubling.  The debauchery of the night before came after two weeks of exhausting and utterly amazing stories of heartache and redemption.  Suffice it to say, I spend most of my days in the dark tunnels of sexual violence—shame, addiction, idolatry, cruelty, and occasionally redemption.  In countless ways, I am a sin eater.  When redemption comes it invariably surprises me.  I am thrilled but always surprised and somewhat leery. Why then?  Why not later or before?  In some form it is a drive to understand, to comprehend so I can replicate it for others.  On the other, it is a deep suspicion with change, of any sort.  And it is as well, a relentless hunger to be in the presence of God’s glory.

What I can tell you about the conversation is it was tender and kind.  The words he spoke about the Sabbath conference and how our group leaders walked into dry, angry, and exhausted hearts to humbly invite the warriors we served to hear the delight of the Father brought tears streaming down my face.  And he blessed me.  I led those good men and women who fought in the small groups; I taught and prayed for them.  But the words he spoke to me about my heart as a leader still make me blush.   

As unnerved as I was I still had not connected the words I heard to the night before.  The conversation ended rather abruptly.  He got up and walked away to get coffee.  I looked around and I was staring at the same television that had captured me the night before.  The screen was dark.  I felt no urge to turn it on, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. 

My heart felt alive and strong and I wondered why the night before I felt so dead.  And it seemed so simple.  I was tired.  I had no energy left for anyone or anything and I wanted to plunge into a numb, hyper-stimulated nothingness so that I didn’t have to think, feel, or choose anyone or anything.  It wasn’t primarily my exhaustion that was at war with my senses.  It was glory.  I simply had no space left, no capacity to bear up under the combined labor expended and glory experienced.  I could bear nothing more of the presence or kindness of God.  To have done so I would have had to collapse in his arms and cry like a child.  I would have had to ask him what he thought of me and my labor and heard his words or risked the static silence of my jumbled brain.  Instead, I used television as a pornographic mockery of all that I had experienced to tune out his voice or silence my need for his words.  What I fled from was his kindness and what I ran smack into was his presence. 

The word that kept coming to mind was debauchery. It was loud and insistent. I know its meaning. But something compelled me to look it up in the dictionary. It comes from the French word debauch—to lead away from duty. It is what I had done. I had allowed myself to be seduced, to indulge in a sensuous affair to escape my duty. But what dawned on me in the aftermath of the night’s indulgence and the comical and odd conversation with cowboy Jesus was he had seduced me from duty—not in my sin of the night before—that is mine alone, but in his casual, nonchalance and invitation to not get to work but to hear him, to receive from him, the very kindness that I most desire and yet so often steer far from. He led me away from duty. Oh, kind and crafty Jesus, how do you want to enter our flight from you? How do you want to make yourself known to us, to speak? What do you want to say to our most weary and hardened heart?  How Jesus do you wish to debauch us from duty to receive from you the delight of your heart?