2013

Do We Suffer Spiritual Allergies?

14 Comments / Contemplation, Culture, Spiritual life / By

What has caused allergies to soar over the past century?

A recent New York Times piece suggests that Amish farmers may represent the answer; they have one of the least allergic populations in the developed world. Studies indicate that is because they breathe barnyard bacteria, live with dirty fingernails, work in the “liquid gold” of fresh cow manure, and drink unpasteurized milk.[1]

Furthermore, according to the “hygiene hypothesis,” the fact that we live in sanitized and airtight environments means that our immune system no longer fights germs as it once did. Being “underemployed,” it has apparently shifted its resources over to picking fights with innocent bystanders – like dust, pollen, or pet dander.

I wonder if that could also explain cultural or spiritual “allergies.” Something sure seems to make people fight fairly harmless stuff in the environment. Like the names of sports teams. Or the President’s golfing frequency.

In a parallel to the evolution of hygiene, most people throughout history lived in great danger, worked very hard, and fought harsh and tangible enemies – like droughts, volcanoes, plagues, Huns, etc. Naturally, you just wouldn’t attack your neighbor’s religion while helping him save his cattle in a blizzard.

Now we live in extraordinary safety and sanitation, “work” at computer screens, and “fight” concepts.

That could be why, for several years, I’ve felt like a pig at the opera; I see and hear the production, but I don’t understand anything. For example, I can’t comprehend the anger and militancy on any side of social, economic, political, or religious issues. They all seem like allergens. I know the arguments. What I don’t get is the polarization and animosity. It’s seems as illogical as going into seizures when a cat enters the room.

I often think of Maple and Cecile Chinn, my grandparents. Born at the end of the 19th century, they were farmers for most of the 20th. They rode out the Great Depression, helplessly watched their infant daughter die of pneumonia, suffered devastating losses of livestock and crops, and sent three sons halfway around the world to face very real enemies.

Sometimes when I struggle and groan at my computer, navigate airports, or fight with tech support on the phone, I suddenly feel like they are watching me. And they have zero idea what I’m doing or why I’m so troubled. Then I realize that they endured the Depression; I endure airport security. They lost a child; I lose cellphone signals.

That’s why I wonder if our spiritual immune system may be misreading harmless allergens as threats. It certainly seems like modern life keeps everyone tense, offended, and quick to fight. We are on full alert – too many news broadcasts begin with a BREAKING NEWS banner over ominous end-of-the-world music. I sometimes think we watch the screens of our lives for instructions on what to fear and who to hate.

Today we tend to live in sterilized, protected, and homogenous clusters of ideas, values, heroes, and enemies. We do not engage cultural or spiritual “bacteria,” and we seem unable to climb into another person’s or people’s story. We are – I am – curiously incurious.

Many years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote, “…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

We could all spend the rest of our lives contemplating (hopefully with friends) the depth and breadth of those words.

Perhaps it is coincidental that Paul lived and wrote in a raw and raucous time. He walked roads of mud and manure, spent a lot of time in prison, was often and severely beaten, suffered shipwrecks, and faced many life-threatening opponents. He certainly did not live in philosophical or cultural sterility. His writing reveals an eager and curious mind.

Maybe he was so busy with real life that he had no time for spiritual allergies.

[1] Moises Velasquez-Manoff, “A Cure for the Allergy Epidemic?” New York Times (November 9, 2013)

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The Authentic Swing

Leave a Comment / Book Review, Contemplation, God, Golf, Stories, Writing / By

Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance, The War of Art) just published a new book; The Authentic Swing (Black Irish Entertainment, 2013) examines the twin tracks of golf and writing.

Here’s the deal: golf and writing (and probably every other artistic expression) come from the same place – our unique design by God. They are just part of who we are. Just as my eyes are green and I cannot change that, so are my golf swing and my writing. God gave them. They are authentic, part of the bundle called Ed Chinn. I can work on improving both, but I can’t change the original design.

Pressfield’s most profound insight is the very simple line, “The golf swing is not learned, it is remembered.” We get in trouble when we try to become something or someone else.

He also writes, “The philosophy that underlies…the Authentic Swing contradicts the Western ideal of education, training, and evolution. It rejects the axiom that ‘you can be anything you want to be.’ …we can only be who we already are.”

Pressfield really camps out in that mysterious realm of art and creativity. To write or sing or act or sculpt or dance is to live in the intersection of flesh and spirit, heaven and earth. The biggest part of the art seems to come from another realm. The writer is a scribe. That’s why I’ve never been able to really identify with anything I’ve written.

It may have passed through me, but it certainly did not originate in me.

My song-writing friend Morris Chapman said that being a songwriter is much like being an oil refinery. God makes the “oil;” Morris is just a place where it gets boiled, distilled, etc. Nothing possessive (or glamorous) about that.

Finally, Pressfield writes, “…you think you’re crafting a story, but in fact the story is crafting you. The story is like a dream, in that it bubbles up from some deep internal source. The story is wiser than you…it is trying to tell you something about yourself. That’s why it hooks you…You think that your story is private, unique, idiosyncratic. You believe that no one will be interested in it but you. But the more deeply you enter into your story, the more you perceive its universality. The story is never about what you think it is. It’s never about someone. It’s always about everyone.”

He also knows what all writers know: “You have not chosen the story. The story has chosen you.” That is so wise. When I read this (and other lines) I found myself thinking…Pressfield, you are not far from the Kingdom of God. (Mark 12:34)

This very short and readable book also serves up very nice insights on caddies, why golf is so hard and harassing, movie making in general and the making of The Legend of Bagger Vance in particular.

If you write or golf, The Authentic Swing will find traction in your heart. If you pay attention and take notes during your walk through the earth, you may be startled to hear this book whisper your name.

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The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

3 Comments / Appreciation, Book Review, Culture, death, legacy / By

The true story Rod Dreher tells in The Little Way of Ruthie Leming (Grand Central, 2013) is simple and straight. And we know the end from the beginning. Rod and his little sister Ruth grow up in a small town in Louisiana. He cannot wait to leave the place. He wants the “big” – city, money, fame. She chooses the local, the little, and the quiet.

At forty, she is stricken with a very aggressive cancer. Rod watches the community come around his little sister. Her quiet and steady sowing – her “faithfulness in small things” – turns into a great harvest of kindness and generosity. She dies. Rod not only writes a book honoring his sister and her choice of the “little way,” he realizes he can and must find that way.

It has been said that a great book will read us more than we read it. This is that kind of book; at least it was for me. I too grew up in a small town. And I could not wait to leave Pratt, Kansas. My brother Vernon stayed. Except for an excursion through the US Army and Viet Nam, and postwar ranching jobs in Nebraska and Colorado, Vernon has been a supporting column for family and community all his life.

So this very real, organic, and probing book was a mirror for me. I saw myself in the intricate layers of father-son relationships, the shades of familial and community acceptance (and rejection), and the nuances of sibling relationships.

But, the real beauty and power of The Little Way…is the compelling twin portraits of Ruthie and St. Francisville, Louisiana. Ruthie was a very full-spirited southern woman. She always manifested a serious, even sacrificial, approach to life. But she also dropped her bra at a Hank Williams Jr. concert, swung it like a lasso, then released it to soar onto the stage (Hank draped it from the neck of his guitar).

In time, Ruthie settled. She became a teacher; “Listen, sweet baby, you can do this,” she pleads with a student. She loved her parents, her husband and daughters, her students, cooking and St. Francisville. She was a true community spark plug. Everyone in town knew and loved her. Ruthie comes right off the pages in full throbbing color.

When Ruthie got sick, the town folded around her like a right hand would grab and hold injured fingers on the left hand. This is one of the most vivid portrayals of community you will ever read.

For example, the town came together for a “Leming-Aid” concert in the park.  Out of 1700 residents, a thousand people came, and they gave $43,000! People were buying ice cream cones with hundred dollar bills.

When Ruthie hit a very bad place, a text message called her daughter Hannah out of class at LSU. Hannah quickly asked a classmate to drive her home (30 miles) in her Jeep. He drove so fast that he blew the radiator. Almost immediately a couple picked them up and drove them straight to the hospital. That night, as the family returned from the hospital, their house had been cleaned, the tables and counters piled high with food, and the Jeep was sitting in the driveway. The radiator had been repaired.

True to the rhythms of community, her open casket sat on the same spot in the church “where she and Mike had stood years earlier and promised to be together until death.”

Ruthie was often barefooted; it was something of a signature. When the pallbearers stepped to the rear of the funeral coach to receive her casket, they were all barefoot, with their suit pants rolled high over their ankles. They carried her “to her grave with the wet green grass of Starhill [Cemetery] between their toes.” When Ruthie’s daughters saw that, they removed their shoes too.

After the funeral, Rod and his family knew – and told some friends –they were returning to St. Francisville. In the little way of small towns, immediately someone told him about a house. He looked at it and took it.

The house was located on Fidelity Street.

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September 16, 1966

5 Comments / Appreciation / By

Today, September 16, is the most frequent birth date in America.

Seriously.

I don’t know why, but I’m sure the Christmas season and alcohol play contributing roles. “Oh, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie, in nine days we will celebrate our Lord’s birth…my grandfather made this moonshine in 1938. He left it to me and I’ve saved it all these years. Let us now begin this season of worship.” Or something like that.

Our first child, Jack Edward, was born on this date in 1966. I can’t remember the Christmas season of 1965, but I do know that alcohol was not involved. As Pentecostals, Joanne and I had not yet discovered those wondrous liquids made from grain and grapes. But having been married just three months, I’m sure we were intoxicated by love.

Whatever the factors that led to conception, Joanne woke me about midnight nine months later, “Honey, it’s time.” Minutes later, I drove my young wife very fast across San Marcos, Texas.

Fathers were not invited into delivery rooms in those days. So about seven hours later Joanne’s aunt Veva, who was a natal nurse, rushed Eddie out to the waiting room. She grinned as she handed him to me. I didn’t understand her joy; Eddie looked like he had been thrown from a speeding car. His head was long and horribly bent. Apparently the doctor had once worked in a sheet metal shop. He used forceps like he was straightening a truck frame. I could visualize the afternoon paper headline: “Tragedy in Texas.” But, in the great mystery of human resiliency, Eddie’s head was just fine by the next day.

I was 19 when he was born. In a very real sense, he and I grew up together. At times, he has seemed like a younger brother. I made so many mistakes with him. But he was always so gentle, sweet, and forgiving. And he still is.

He was a happy child. He often gushed, “I’m just so proud, happy, and glad” as he clapped his hands and grinned. He loved his parents, his grandparents, his brother and sister, and…Johnny Cash. When he was five, we took him to a Cash concert in the Fort Worth Convention Center. Although we had cheap seats, at one point I carried Eddie right down to the stage. I held him as we both gazed up at the Man in Black. Dear God, the man must have been fourteen feet tall.

Eddie never got over that. He has been an unrelenting, unrepentant, Cash fan since that night.

Eighteen years ago, Eddie married his lifelong friend, Myra Roachelle. And they have raised three splendid and beautiful daughters. One of the greatest joys of my life has been watching our firstborn come into full measure as a dad; he fathers his children much different, and much better, than I did.

The Bible says that Samuel grew up “in stature and in favor with God and men.” So did Eddie. Like his brother and sister, Eddie found his life reasons and rhythms beyond this place. He has always been a blessing on society.

So, for this and many other reasons, on this September 16, Joanne and I are just “so proud, happy, and glad” to salute our son on his forth-seventh birthday. Son, we love you and we honor you.

We joyfully celebrate the day of your birth.

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Sandfish Lizard

The Sandfish and Me

4 Comments / Adaptation, Environment, Freedom, God, Wisdom / By

The sandfish is a lizard that lives in the deserts of North Africa. Its name reflects its nature of diving into the sand and then pulling its legs close to its body to “swim” (like an eel) through sand. It does that in order to hide from predators or find cool relief from the heat.

As I watched a recent television feature about the sandfish, I was struck by how that lizard models conformity to God, Who “made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation.” (Acts 17:26, NASB)

Although the sandfish is not part of “mankind,” it is clearly content in, and adapted to, its assignment to a time and a place. It seems delighted to live in the Arabian Desert – and not in the Artic, the mountains, swamps, South Pacific islands, the tundra, or Tokyo.

Our Creator could have placed that sandfish – or me – in any time of history or any place on earth. But He designed both of us for specific times and places. So, why have I been unable to adapt to my own habitat as freely and fully as the sandfish? Why do I live in a continual critique of my “desert” and its problems?

Perhaps if I humble myself that little sand creature can teach me a vital truth: I am here and I cannot change anything about here. I am also God’s workmanship. He made me; I didn’t. So why do I struggle with all of that? I seem to live in continuous anxiety; I feel the need to change my place, my times, and myself. I imagine a need to live so “prophetically” that “sinners” will fall on the ground and writhe in repentance, or that my government will change or collapse.

Why do I live in an assumption that I must emulate people who lived in other times and other places? I seem strangely compelled to live in, maybe, the Congo (or in the first century). Anywhere but here, anytime but now. I seem to think that He cannot lead His creatures in the times and places that He chose. So I work very hard to be an excellent “witness” of Him.

But wait a minute; He said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Perhaps living prophetically and excellently should be fun. I never think about the need to live as a Chinn or with green eyes. He chose all of that for me. He also chose and appointed me to go (into my time and place) and bear fruit (John 15:16). All of that is a natural process. Oak trees don’t grunt to push acorns through their branches.

Real life is a thousand miles from religious life. Our simple acts and real words bear fruit. Routinely. Effortlessly. Those ordinary human words and acts leave an eternal and living gift in our time and space. But the gift comes from God, not me. I am a mere conduit; I can’t do it and I can’t control it. He chose that for me. Just as He chose the Arabian deserts for the sandfish.

Could that be why Jesus told his disciples (and us) to take no thought for what they would eat, drink, or wear? Since all of that has already been chosen for us, we are free to live fully, joyfully, and without worry. Kind of like the sandfish.

For example, consider how most people relate to problems. We react, get depressed or angry, fixate, or self-destruct. Yet consider how the sandfish continually copes with a life and death issue of heat; it just dives five inches from the surface to where the temperature can be fifty degrees cooler. Do you think, if we have eyes to see, salvation may await us just inches away?

The same Mind that created the sandfish also created you and me.  So can we find the same freedom and delight in our Creator as that lizard?

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Guess Who's Coming to Diner

The Audacity of Thought

Leave a Comment / Culture, Sanctuary / By

In his last movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), Spencer Tracy confronted the problem (for that man, in that time) of his daughter’s plan to marry a black man.

To see the movie today is to be struck with Tracy’s full minute and thirty seconds of screen time… just thinking. He is alone, at night, on his own terrace, standing or walking with his hands folded behind his back. In long shots, we see his rugged face reflecting the mental grind of deliberation and judgment.

In its own way, the scene is shocking. As art, it suggests that thinking requires solitude and space. We need the freedom to just wander through the rooms of our sanctuary, processing – at our own pace – through problems and possibilities. We also need wide latitudes for considering our response (if any) to public issues and institutions. Like Kramer in Seinfeld, I may choose to not wear the ribbon.

The freedom to think, without pressure, is a crucial liberty. And we are surely losing it. Today our sanctuary is wired with alarms that bring official power storming into our private world. They seem to have full authority to confiscate computers, demand personal reading lists, ask why certain words were Googled, close lemonade stands and track mud throughout our realm.

In fact, the spirit of our times seems to despise the whole idea of sanctuary. We cannot be trusted to inhabit a personal “castle” of thought. Presumably, our need for protection from, oh, terrorism, child predators, economic risk, etc. is so severe and urgent that experts must think for us. We live in the cultural assumption that consequences are so awful that individuals can no longer have the luxury of free thought. That may be why we have criminalized so much. It takes very little to trip the alarms. Increasingly, the entrenched powers have the right to come down on anyone at anytime.

It also seems that today we are allowed to have a “position,” but not allowed to take our time getting there. We used to think our way into certain convictions. Today, we usually arrive at a particular view because it is announced by shrill voices or because a group (our own or a dominant one) prefers or demands it. So, like leaves, we get blown into a corner. But we can’t explain why or how we got there.

It seems that everything today must be…efficient. And efficiency requires automation, compliance and conformity. To stop and think is like praying in the post office. Chaos. The atmosphere explodes with sparks if anyone resists the undercurrents of the age.

And everything must be fast.

Need my funds immediately? OK, if I just give the details of my cash and credit life to the financial institutions, they will make it so easy and fast. Trust them; they’ve already thought through it for me. The smartest guys in the room will take care of everything.

We move so fast that we depend on manufactured or archived thoughts. That’s why we love quotes. Ben Franklin or Frederick Douglass did the hard work – the months or years of strolling through the thinking process. We just scream off the freeway long enough to grab a sack of their quotes at the drive-through window.

Increasingly, humans are cells in a mass mind. Thinking has moved from the individual to the collective. “Wiki” describes that new way of thinking; it is a collaboration of mostly anonymous contributors. Because anyone can create and change the content, and leave no fingerprints, individuals have been largely sheared away from the burden and responsibility for anything.

That may be why no one seems to give a damn. We know we can’t change anything, so we stop caring. “Whatever” is the default response of the age.

Joanne and I have been married, and joyfully, almost forty-eight years. But we found that the only way into that sanctuary was to live in counter-cultural love. We simply could not and cannot live by the reasons and rhythms of dominant culture. To do that would steal everything we have.

Maybe the same thing is true of thinking. What if some engaged in active resistance of the realm? What if some heroic or romantic individuals would return to the timeless audacities of thought by…

Stepping into the beauty of silence and meditation?

Presuming to take a long time just looking and listening?

Becoming curious again?

Embracing ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty?

Learning to seek out wise people for personal counsel?

Daring to give a damn?

The audacity of thought is looking beyond the visible until we see the unseen. No matter how long it takes or how many rules it breaks.

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The Power of Your Story

2 Comments / Abraham, Culture, curators, God, Stories / By

According to the play, “Papa,” Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story using only six words.

He wrote “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.”

If you have a pulse, those six words should stop you in your tracks. You have just been arrested by the power of story.

Producers and Curators

A story is a like a seed. It carries a power that is mysterious and enduring. When it falls into the ground of a human mind, it takes on a life of its own. That’s why the classic stories – from “The Prodigal Son” to “Treasure Island” – have been told in every culture and time since their first telling.

Eugene Peterson wrote that, “we live in a world impoverished of story; so it is not surprising that many of us have picked up the bad habit of extracting ‘truths’ from the stories we read: we summarize ‘principles’ that we can use in a variety of settings at our discretion; we distill a ‘moral’ that we can use as a slogan on a poster or as a motto on our desk.”[1]

We have the choice to become either a producer or a curator of a story. Producers clean the story up, polish it, and shape it into something – a song, a play, a novel, or a sermon – that will satisfy a market or a need. In other words, they turn it into a product; they extract or emphasize what will serve that purpose.

Curators have a much greater respect for the story and knowledge of its true value. They are not interested in the story as a product; they want to preserve it exactly as they found it. They care about passing it on, intact, to future generations.

What About Your Stories?

Some people love stories…as long as they belong to someone else.  They are simply too scandalized by their own life and heritage.  They may be totally ashamed of the famial history of alcoholism, gambling, debt, drugs, illicit sex, or other transgressions.

But, we cannot choose our family stories anymore than we can choose our ancestors.

Our family stories carry the imprint of God’s destiny and love. When we back up and look at the whole panorama of our ancestors’ lives – including the shameful – we can often discover the threads of our life’s tapestry.

For example, my maternal grandfather was a moonshiner. As a result of his clandestine career, he spent time with law enforcement officers and as a “guest” in their facilities.  Naturally that was traumatizing to his family.

The whole family moved (suddenly and in the middle of the night) from Missouri to Kansas.  The complete story of this quick relocation is murky, but apparently had something to do with Grandpa avoiding prosecution.

After they were settled in Kansas, their daughter, Mary, met a new friend. And that girl had an older brother named Jack. Eventually, Mary and Jack met. They were married in 1944. I was their first child.

So, a man fleeing the law is a crucial part of my biography. This story is not scandalous to me; I love it and celebrate it – I wouldn’t be here if grandpa hadn’t been “called” to the moonshine business (and quickly called to jump across the nearest state line).

Is it possible that God has a different view of family and heritage than we do? Could that be why the Bible contains some very nasty stories – like adultery and murder – in the lineage of Jesus?

Sometimes people allow shame, ignorance or political correctness to “improve” or “air brush” family stories.  But, doing so can rob the story of its unique gift to the future.  I know for a fact that the real story carries enormous power on future generations.

My grandpa’s story may have appeared as disgraceful to those who were immediately impacted by it. But, over time and in the hands of a loving God, the story has become a prized family heirloom.

Keep Faith with the Story

Most modern approaches to story telling tend to be too cold, mechanical, controlling, or product-driven. They focus on issues like the audience, the “message,” what the storyteller wants the audience to do, the importance of having “a beginning, a middle, and an end,” etc.

All of those are “producer” issues. A curator approaches a story differently:

  1. Know the story.If there are audio or videotapes of the ancestral stories being told, watch or listen to them over and over.  If you can find newspaper articles or other written records, make copies and read them over and over.Ask any living participants to tell you the stories. Ask them again. Next year, ask them to tell it again. Listen to the way they tell it, watch what happens in their eyes and to their mouths when the story comes out. How has the story changed since you heard it last? Why did it change?
  2. Love the story.Even if the story contains details of darkness or corruption, try to see it from a higher vantage point. How was your own life assisted, improved, or even made possible by that story?Love the whole story – honor your ancestors by learning to love it.  Don’t react to the negative aspects of the story. Again, remember the genealogies recorded in the gospels. Apparently, God didn’t flinch at any details of his own canonized family stories.
  3. Tell the story.Don’t tell the story you wish had happened or that contemporary society would prefer. And, don’t tell a sermonized version. Keep faith with the real story.  Moses (the author of Genesis) told the story of the great father of faith – Abraham – offering his own wife, Sarah, sexually to Pharaoh.  A religious mind might have expunged that from the “holy book.” But, Moses kept faith with the story.

 

Your story is a conduit of the marvelous spiritual “estate” which flows down to you across the centuries.  Protect it from the ravages of time and culture; tell it exactly as it was given to you.

Release its power to others in, and beyond, your own time.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), p. 48

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T. Boone Pickens’s 85th Birthday

1 Comment / Culture / By

I just saw this wonderful little view of T. Boone Pickens on his recent 85th birthday.

It is just beautiful to see a man at 85 still charged by challenges and goals. Good grief, “retirement” is a fairly recent invention. Mr. Pickens understands that life is to be lived fully from cradle to grave.

Personal note: Twenty-five years ago, I made a fundraising presentation to Phil Anschutz. When I finished, he said, “Ed, I’m embarrassed that I’ve given so little money to [organization]. I’m going to give you another $25,000.” Then he told his secretary to get Boone Pickens on the line.

Seconds later, she buzzed him, “Mr. Pickens on the line”

Phil: “Boone. Hey listen, I want you to give $25,000 to a wonderful organization. You will? Great. Ed, what is the address?” I couldn’t remember the organization’s address, so I gave him my home address.

A few days later, I received an envelop from T. Boone Pickens with a check made out to the organization I represented.

That taught me a lot about how billionaires get to be billionaires.

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A Dream So Big

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On March 12, 1998, Stephen Wrigley Peifer died. Born with a rare disease, the eight-day-old baby never had a chance to live.

Stephen was not the only one who died that day. Something also died in his parents and two brothers. Steve and Nancy Peifer found themselves in a place beyond grief. A way of living came to an end. They both recognized that their lives simply could not go on.

Nine years later, in an internationally televised special, CNN recognized Steve as a “Hero.”

What happened in those years?

The Peifers released their life to fall into the ground and die (John 12:24). Out of their profound grief, they moved to Kenya to spend one year serving as dorm parents at Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe. They needed a place far away. They had no intentions of staying in Kenya beyond one year.

But, as the true face of poverty and hunger came into clear focus, they both recognized they simply could not return to their old life. They clearly saw that “their” life did not belong to them. They had to pour it all out. Destiny was pulling them up into something larger than their own family and their own grief.

And then the God of all the earth whispered two revelations to Steve. One was about how to feed the children of Kenya. The other revealed how to build an economic future for those kids.

Today, as a result of that Voice, 20,000 children have enough to eat each day. They have also helped to get brilliantly-designed solar-powered computer labs built in some of the most isolated areas of Kenya. That story in itself just takes your breath away. With all due respect to CNN and the Peifers, this is not a story of heroes; it’s the story of God stepping onto His earth to care for His Own.

That powerful story is captured in the new book, A Dream So Big by Steve Peifer (Zondervan, 2013).

Pain is a Portal

The early passages of the book on the life and death of Stephen carry an overwhelming and pristine emotional power. The reader is carried to an unearthly place as the heart of a family is excavated by God’s enormous shovel.

The reader never sees the political flattening and reductionism of the sterile concepts we call “pro life” and “pro choice.” This is a story of God! He sits so far above the suffocating and mildewed “issues.” When Nancy pours her heart out to God, she heard Him say, “Stephen has more purpose than just fulfilling your motherhood!” From there, we watch as their pain becomes a portal for God’s kindness and provision for Kenya’s next generation.

These wise parents don’t think of Stephen as a “short” or even “tragic” life. His was a complete and purposeful life. The book is dedicated: “To Stephen Wrigley Peifer, Born March 4, 1998. Having fulfilled the purpose the Father had for him, he returned to the Father March 12, 1998.”

A Dream so Big is also a fine look at a real marriage. When life kicks them to the curb, and the possibilities of going to Africa first appear, Steve blurts out, “I could do that.” And Nancy, who had always dreamed of Africa, turns to her husband and says, “Don’t you play with me about this!”

These are battered and bruised grownups caught in the grip of Almighty God. Nothing cheap, cute, or “Christian” here at all.

Surpassing Grace

The Bible says that where sin increased, grace increased more (Romans 5:20). It is also true that where injury, illness, train wrecks, death, and other losses increase, they leverage a larger load of grace.

The Peifer family’s heart was cut open by the loss of their son and brother; today 20,000 children have enough to eat each day. Furthermore, after losing Stephen, they (in one of the most beautiful narratives of this grand story), gained two children.

Grace always surpasses the loss.

A Dream So Big is one beautiful and moving story of the largeness of God. It pinned me to my reading chair and would not let me move. I groaned in pain, used up many tissues, and laughed deeply at the inevitable and magnificent victory of God in His earth.

I know what book I’ll be giving to friends in the near future.

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Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

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All of us are captives of culture. And most of us think that he, she, or they certainly are, but that I am not.

Each of us tend to see our own roots going way past the loam where culture grows, way on down into the bedrock of God or “the truth.” But, in fact, we all draw most of our sustenance from the topsoil of our own codes, traditions, rituals, language, etc. Naturally and inevitably we pull the ancient and living Bible into service to our own culture and selfishness.

That is basically the idea behind Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien (IVP, 2012).

Western culture has specific notions about ethnicity, individuals, groups, law, honor, privacy, rules, time, and virtue and vice. And we continually impose those notions on the Bible and faith. For example, the authors write, “The technical term for behaviors like smoking, drinking and cussing is mores…Webster’s Dictionary defines mores as ‘folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group.'” Yet “Christians are tempted to believe our mores originate from the Bible.”

I found Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes to be very helpful in identifying the specifics behind those “Western Eyes.” For example:

  • Language. “English is a subject-verb language; it is actor- and action-oriented. We prefer sentences with a clear subject and a clear predicate, and we like it best when the verb is in the active voice. It is difficult to construct a meaningful sentence in English without a subject. Even when we describe weather (‘It is raining’), we supply a subject (‘it’). Other languages can manage without a subject…in Indonesia, one can say, ‘Exists rain.'”
  • Sex. Western societies tend to let sex drive relationships. We allow, even encourage, boys and girls to get together…alone…in the dark…with alcohol! We call it “dating.” But more communal cultures see that as irresponsible parenting. As one Indonesian father said, “Wow, you Americans are amazing. If Indonesian kids did that, someone would get pregnant.” He goes on, “For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower.” Is it possible that we in the West are confused about sex?
  • Time. Westerners are schedule-driven. But most people of the Bible (and other times and places) were/are relationship-based. We set times for a meeting to begin. But for non-Westerners, a meeting begins “when everyone who needs to be there has arrived.” We impose our time and schedule as virtues on our reading of the Bible.

One of the great and deep joys of this book is how they blow the dust and smoke away from some biblical passages. For example, they show how Western Christians read the story of David and Bathsheba through issues like personal guilt and populism. We completely miss that David was a king. In fact, Uriah failed to treat David with the honor due him. So David had him killed and probably never thought another thing about it. The authors sure persuaded me that “David was not tortured by a guilty conscience.”

However, this is really a story of a king and The King. Only when God confronted David, did the lesser king break! Oh, I loved that view.

They also show how the Apostle Paul had to navigate a patronage system when he raised money.

But the real payload and joy of the book, for me, is in the conflicting views of rules vs. relationships. “In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time.” But, in the Bible, “rules applied except when they didn’t.” What a lovely line!

One of the authors tells of a time when he was a speaker at a Baptist “pastor’s conference” in Indonesia. He knew that the bylaws of the denomination permitted only men to serve as pastors. But he saw women in the audience. When he mentioned it to his host, he man just nodded. So, the author said, “But your laws say pastors must be male.” And his host calmly replied, “Yes, and most of them are.”

He then wondered about the Apostle Paul… “Paul states, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet’ (1 Tim 2:12). ‘But what about Priscilla and Junia?’ we might ask Paul. ‘They taught in church. You said women must keep silent.'”

“Perhaps Paul would answer, ‘Yes. And most of them do.'”

If you want a book to challenge your traditions and attitudes (perhaps even jerk you out of them), I highly recommend Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.  

NOTE: The authors bring very diverse and many international perspectives into play. For some reason, the Indonesian examples spoke more to me. That’s why I used several in this review.

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