I had fun tonight showing pictures and telling stories from part of my recent African adventure. About 50 people gathered in the Parish Hall at Christ Church in Andover where I spent about an hour talking through pictures and some video from roughly the first half of my month in Africa. I talked through parts of my experience in Kenya, including Nairobi, Korogocho, Masailand, Lokichokkio and Kakuma. Then we went to Sudan and the experience in Yei and the NESEI school. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of the NESEI school yet since my camera had run out of batter power that day. Hope to have pictures I took on another camera sent to me soon.
You can access some of the pictures I showed tonight on flickr.com at http://www.flickr.com/photos/27582439@N02/show/. This is the first time I've used flickr, so I hope it works for you to click on that link. The places mentioned above all feature prominently in previous postings to this blog, so if the pictures don't make sense by themselves, you can read the earlier postings about them. I have labeled some of the pictures with captions, but not all. It's getting late, and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.
Next Wednesday night I'll be doing the same routine, only talking about Rwanda, Congo, and Burundi, and the conference I attended on reconciliation. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Pray for Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is in crisis. Our bishop, Tom Shaw, has just returned from a visit there to stand alongside the Bishop of Harare, Sebastian Bakare, during this extremely tense and difficult time leading up to the run-off election next week. An article about his visit appeared on the front page of today's Boston Globe. You can read the article and also see a brief video clip by following this link:
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Martyrs of Uganda
Yesterday was the feast day for the Martyrs of Uganda according to the Episcopal Church calendar of saints. I hadn't realized that until I arrived at church early yesterday morning to prepare for our 7 am Eucharist. Seemed awfully convenient for that one to pop up on my first Wednesday back from Africa. Now I have to say that I'm struggling a bit with how much to talk about my recent experiences in Africa. I don't want to lose touch with them. I want to continue to learn everything I can from them. But I don't want people rolling their eyes saying "Does this guy ever talk about anything but Africa?!" It's still a little early for that, but I want to make sure I don't do that to people.
I didn't have to worry about that yesterday. I had the perfect excuse -- the lectionary. Most of what I know about the Martyrs of Uganda comes from the one page description in Lesser Feasts and Fasts (a supplement to the Book of Common Prayer that has all of the lesser feast and fast days of the liturgical year in it). I'll have to change that and do some more reading about them. What I had known for years was just how important these martyrs were for the explosive growth of Christianity in Uganda over a century ago.
The Martyrs of Uganda were a group of thirty-two young men who were pages in the court of King Mwanga of Buganda. On June 1, 1886, they were burned to death for their refusal to renounce the way of Jesus. Many others died for their faith either by fire or spear in the following months. Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries had introduced the Christian faith beginning in 1877, but only to the members of the royal household, by order of King Mutesa. His successor was annoyed that the converts put loyalty to God ahead of loyalty to the king.
That's kind of what Jesus had in mind when he talked about the kingdom of God. It was a radical alternative to the kingdoms of this world, and their universally failed programs of domination and control. Jesus talked about a kingdom where the poor are the blessed ones, the meek inherit the earth, peacemakers will see God. He intentionally went outside the circles of power and made the people on the margins the focus of his attention -- lepers, bleeding women, uncircumsized pagans, the blind, deaf, dumb, and even the dead. He knew that whether the allegiance being demanded came from an emperor in Rome, or Herod, the Sadducees or the Pharisees, or Kings Mwanga or George, they were all based on a domination system that fell short of God's desire for the human family.
But back to Uganda in 1886 for a minute. Now, I know that there are a lot of people who would say, "that's what happens when Christians go messing with traditional cultures. Those people would never have been killed if those missionaries hadn't bothered to go and convert those people." And I have to confess just how nervous I get whenever the whole topic of missionaries and evangelism of non-Christian peoples comes up. I'm way too aware of some of the history of the unholy alliances of church and state, the confusion of evangelism and colonialism, the problem of religious imperialism, the failure to differentiate between Christ and culture, and in some cases the outright destruction of native cultures in the name of God -- all of which has been done at various times and in various places in the name of "spreading the good news." The methods (if not the message) has been bad news to lots of people, for sure. I'm aware of these problems both from the standpoint of the history of the missionary enterprise and also from personal experience.
As missionary associates in Japan with a certain pentecostal denomination in the 1970s, Carolyn and I witnessed it firsthand -- old-time missionaries who made statements like, "I wish these people would stop worrying about being Japanese and just be Christians." Don't get me started.
It's a well documented fact that despite all the often very good and noble intentions of Christian missionaries throughout the centuries, and the undisputed good that many of them have actually done, the "gospel" has too often been bad news in the hands of zealous people whose motivations had more to do with the love of power than the power of love.
That doesn't seem to have been the case, however, with the missionaries in Uganda. They respected the king's wishes to introduce the faith only to members of the court. In some ways, however, that was the most dangerous place it could possibly be introduced. Maybe the king thought he could control it there in his court. But the kind of authority Jesus talked about ("the one who is first will be last, and the last will be first") is almost always a threat to people in authority. The martyrs of Uganda died for the principle that no human power can be greater than God's power, no authority greater than the authority of love.
That principle gets tested all the time, not the least in our own time. Guantanamo Bay is in the news again today with the military tribunals for five of the alleged 9/11 conspirators. No one has any sympathy for anyone who masterminded such attacks on the United States. But the tactics that have been used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and other (some secret) prisons around the world are not the way to bring justice or right these terrible wrongs. They are making our world less safe, not more, in my humble opinion. Guantanamo is just another reminder of the many ways in which we are being asked by the "kingdoms of this world" (our own imperial government) to "just trust us" -- even as the well established principles of human rights and international law are being ignored and violated.
The Martyrs of Uganda teach us by their example about the courage of conviction that is needed in our own day and in our own culture to stand up to the power of the domination system (as Walter Wink calls it). Those martyrs, converts to the way of Jesus, had been given a taste of a different way of being. Then, as now, Jesus' message of the kingdom of God provided a different way of being human community together.
The blood of the martyrs truly was the seed of the church in Uganda. Ugandans saw in the courage and convictions of these martyrs that this way of Jesus wasn't just a white man's religion -- it was as African as they were. They didn't have to stop being African to be Christians. What really had to change was the same thing that needed to change in every culture if people are to follow this way. They had to begin to let the power of love take precedence over the systems of power based on domination and control. The people of Uganda are still working on that one, just like the rest of us. But the message has been widely accepted, to the point that Uganda is, statistically speaking, the most Christian country in all of Africa.
Just two quick vignettes from Amahoro about some of the Ugandan Christians I met. Emmanuel Ofumbi is an Episcopal layman, and Director of a Community Development Corporation in Tororo, Uganda. The motto on his card says, "Working with Rural Communities to improve their social-economic conditions leading to life of dignity by to ensure [sic] we all have the means to make our world an amazing place." I had quite a few wonderful conversations with this man, who was willing to put aside the differences his own Episcopal Church has with the American Episcopal Church for the sake of our fellowship. I respected that greatly. The other person was a man whose nametag said only "James Nasak" on it. Toward the end of the conference, he came to me and introduced himself as a Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Uganda. He had learned that I was an Episcopal priest from the US, and he went out of his way to come to me and befriend me. He did so in spite of the fact that his church and ours are at odds during this difficult time in the Anglican Communion. I appreciated it very much. We had some good natured conversation and a bit of banter about our beloved but fractured Anglican Communion. He came to me several other times during the conference to touch base and initiate further conversation. We agreed to stay in touch, and he sent his greetings to my bishop.
I think these two Ugandans really get this kingdom of God stuff.
I didn't have to worry about that yesterday. I had the perfect excuse -- the lectionary. Most of what I know about the Martyrs of Uganda comes from the one page description in Lesser Feasts and Fasts (a supplement to the Book of Common Prayer that has all of the lesser feast and fast days of the liturgical year in it). I'll have to change that and do some more reading about them. What I had known for years was just how important these martyrs were for the explosive growth of Christianity in Uganda over a century ago.
The Martyrs of Uganda were a group of thirty-two young men who were pages in the court of King Mwanga of Buganda. On June 1, 1886, they were burned to death for their refusal to renounce the way of Jesus. Many others died for their faith either by fire or spear in the following months. Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries had introduced the Christian faith beginning in 1877, but only to the members of the royal household, by order of King Mutesa. His successor was annoyed that the converts put loyalty to God ahead of loyalty to the king.
That's kind of what Jesus had in mind when he talked about the kingdom of God. It was a radical alternative to the kingdoms of this world, and their universally failed programs of domination and control. Jesus talked about a kingdom where the poor are the blessed ones, the meek inherit the earth, peacemakers will see God. He intentionally went outside the circles of power and made the people on the margins the focus of his attention -- lepers, bleeding women, uncircumsized pagans, the blind, deaf, dumb, and even the dead. He knew that whether the allegiance being demanded came from an emperor in Rome, or Herod, the Sadducees or the Pharisees, or Kings Mwanga or George, they were all based on a domination system that fell short of God's desire for the human family.
But back to Uganda in 1886 for a minute. Now, I know that there are a lot of people who would say, "that's what happens when Christians go messing with traditional cultures. Those people would never have been killed if those missionaries hadn't bothered to go and convert those people." And I have to confess just how nervous I get whenever the whole topic of missionaries and evangelism of non-Christian peoples comes up. I'm way too aware of some of the history of the unholy alliances of church and state, the confusion of evangelism and colonialism, the problem of religious imperialism, the failure to differentiate between Christ and culture, and in some cases the outright destruction of native cultures in the name of God -- all of which has been done at various times and in various places in the name of "spreading the good news." The methods (if not the message) has been bad news to lots of people, for sure. I'm aware of these problems both from the standpoint of the history of the missionary enterprise and also from personal experience.
As missionary associates in Japan with a certain pentecostal denomination in the 1970s, Carolyn and I witnessed it firsthand -- old-time missionaries who made statements like, "I wish these people would stop worrying about being Japanese and just be Christians." Don't get me started.
It's a well documented fact that despite all the often very good and noble intentions of Christian missionaries throughout the centuries, and the undisputed good that many of them have actually done, the "gospel" has too often been bad news in the hands of zealous people whose motivations had more to do with the love of power than the power of love.
That doesn't seem to have been the case, however, with the missionaries in Uganda. They respected the king's wishes to introduce the faith only to members of the court. In some ways, however, that was the most dangerous place it could possibly be introduced. Maybe the king thought he could control it there in his court. But the kind of authority Jesus talked about ("the one who is first will be last, and the last will be first") is almost always a threat to people in authority. The martyrs of Uganda died for the principle that no human power can be greater than God's power, no authority greater than the authority of love.
That principle gets tested all the time, not the least in our own time. Guantanamo Bay is in the news again today with the military tribunals for five of the alleged 9/11 conspirators. No one has any sympathy for anyone who masterminded such attacks on the United States. But the tactics that have been used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and other (some secret) prisons around the world are not the way to bring justice or right these terrible wrongs. They are making our world less safe, not more, in my humble opinion. Guantanamo is just another reminder of the many ways in which we are being asked by the "kingdoms of this world" (our own imperial government) to "just trust us" -- even as the well established principles of human rights and international law are being ignored and violated.
The Martyrs of Uganda teach us by their example about the courage of conviction that is needed in our own day and in our own culture to stand up to the power of the domination system (as Walter Wink calls it). Those martyrs, converts to the way of Jesus, had been given a taste of a different way of being. Then, as now, Jesus' message of the kingdom of God provided a different way of being human community together.
The blood of the martyrs truly was the seed of the church in Uganda. Ugandans saw in the courage and convictions of these martyrs that this way of Jesus wasn't just a white man's religion -- it was as African as they were. They didn't have to stop being African to be Christians. What really had to change was the same thing that needed to change in every culture if people are to follow this way. They had to begin to let the power of love take precedence over the systems of power based on domination and control. The people of Uganda are still working on that one, just like the rest of us. But the message has been widely accepted, to the point that Uganda is, statistically speaking, the most Christian country in all of Africa.
Just two quick vignettes from Amahoro about some of the Ugandan Christians I met. Emmanuel Ofumbi is an Episcopal layman, and Director of a Community Development Corporation in Tororo, Uganda. The motto on his card says, "Working with Rural Communities to improve their social-economic conditions leading to life of dignity by to ensure [sic] we all have the means to make our world an amazing place." I had quite a few wonderful conversations with this man, who was willing to put aside the differences his own Episcopal Church has with the American Episcopal Church for the sake of our fellowship. I respected that greatly. The other person was a man whose nametag said only "James Nasak" on it. Toward the end of the conference, he came to me and introduced himself as a Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Uganda. He had learned that I was an Episcopal priest from the US, and he went out of his way to come to me and befriend me. He did so in spite of the fact that his church and ours are at odds during this difficult time in the Anglican Communion. I appreciated it very much. We had some good natured conversation and a bit of banter about our beloved but fractured Anglican Communion. He came to me several other times during the conference to touch base and initiate further conversation. We agreed to stay in touch, and he sent his greetings to my bishop.
I think these two Ugandans really get this kingdom of God stuff.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Pictures
Maybe I'm just a bad photographer. I don't think so, really, but pictures never tell the whole story. Maybe they come close, if you're a really first-rate photographer. Today, relaxing at Woodsea Place on Peaks Island, Maine, I finally had the chance to look back through the 1200 or so photos I took over the past month, and some of the hour or so of video that I shot. It was really good to see them. I'll take out the out-of-focus ones, rotate the sideways ones, correct the red-eye in some, and crop others. I'll organize them with tags that will allow me to sort them for various purposes. I'll put some in slideshows for church or family viewings. Others I'll post on Facebook. (Yes, I have a Facebook. I used to be the oldest guy on it, but I am definitely not any longer. If you have one and I don't know about it, please invite me to be your friend!)
Last year when George and I went to Europe for ten days, I also took lots of pictures. I had about 400 on my camera after we had been to Prague, Krakow, Auschwitz, and Berlin. On our first morning in Amsterdam, I was sitting on the bed scrolling through them (gotta love those digital cameras) while George showered, and thinking I was rotating a picture, I had actually pressed a button for formatting the entire disk. I realized it immediately, but it was too late. My entire disk had been wiped clean. All of our pictures lost. (I hate digital cameras!) I was sick -- almost physically nauseous. I couldn't believe how stupid I had been! I was afraid to tell George, but when he came out of the shower he could see that something was wrong. I told him, and immediately started beating up on myself for my stupidity.
George came to my rescue. With wisdom beyond his then 19 years, he said, "Dad, forget about it. This is not about the pictures. It's about the experience." I always thought it was supposed to be the dad saying smart stuff like that. He was right, of course. And we decided not even to bother with pictures for the rest of the trip. (What happened in Amsterdam stayed in Amsterdam!) Turned out it was good that we didn't even try, because a data recovery expert was able to get the pictures back once we got home, but if we had gone ahead and used the camera to take more pictures after the disk had been erased, we probably would not have been able to recover them. Thank you, Jesus, and thank you, George.
I do love to look back at pictures of my experiences. While they never totally capture the experience, they do help me to relive at least parts of experiences that might otherwise be lost to my alleged memory.
But back to my pictures of Africa. What I most love about those I saw today are the pictures of children. You can't go to Africa without noticing the children. There are children everywhere, which, I'm told, is the result of the very high birthrate in most African countries. (That was a joke, okay?) I went to Africa to see children -- in schools particularly. But even if I hadn't, children would definitely have been a theme. I especially noticed today the pictures of children in the schools of Korogocho, one of Nairobi's largest slums. I can't believe the smiles I see on their faces. They obviously don't know any better yet. I'm also aware that some of the children I saw and hope I never forget, I do not have pictures of -- children like Nicholas, the little boy we met on the roundabout in the center of Nairobi who was trying to raise money for his school uniform. There were also days when my camera had not sufficiently recharged overnight (usually because the electricity had gone out) and I didn't get photos at certain times and places.
So, my memory will be distorted in some ways by the pictures. I'll try not to be dependent on them for what I have seen and heard and learned. George was right, it's not about the pictures. It's about the experience.
Last year when George and I went to Europe for ten days, I also took lots of pictures. I had about 400 on my camera after we had been to Prague, Krakow, Auschwitz, and Berlin. On our first morning in Amsterdam, I was sitting on the bed scrolling through them (gotta love those digital cameras) while George showered, and thinking I was rotating a picture, I had actually pressed a button for formatting the entire disk. I realized it immediately, but it was too late. My entire disk had been wiped clean. All of our pictures lost. (I hate digital cameras!) I was sick -- almost physically nauseous. I couldn't believe how stupid I had been! I was afraid to tell George, but when he came out of the shower he could see that something was wrong. I told him, and immediately started beating up on myself for my stupidity.
George came to my rescue. With wisdom beyond his then 19 years, he said, "Dad, forget about it. This is not about the pictures. It's about the experience." I always thought it was supposed to be the dad saying smart stuff like that. He was right, of course. And we decided not even to bother with pictures for the rest of the trip. (What happened in Amsterdam stayed in Amsterdam!) Turned out it was good that we didn't even try, because a data recovery expert was able to get the pictures back once we got home, but if we had gone ahead and used the camera to take more pictures after the disk had been erased, we probably would not have been able to recover them. Thank you, Jesus, and thank you, George.
I do love to look back at pictures of my experiences. While they never totally capture the experience, they do help me to relive at least parts of experiences that might otherwise be lost to my alleged memory.
But back to my pictures of Africa. What I most love about those I saw today are the pictures of children. You can't go to Africa without noticing the children. There are children everywhere, which, I'm told, is the result of the very high birthrate in most African countries. (That was a joke, okay?) I went to Africa to see children -- in schools particularly. But even if I hadn't, children would definitely have been a theme. I especially noticed today the pictures of children in the schools of Korogocho, one of Nairobi's largest slums. I can't believe the smiles I see on their faces. They obviously don't know any better yet. I'm also aware that some of the children I saw and hope I never forget, I do not have pictures of -- children like Nicholas, the little boy we met on the roundabout in the center of Nairobi who was trying to raise money for his school uniform. There were also days when my camera had not sufficiently recharged overnight (usually because the electricity had gone out) and I didn't get photos at certain times and places.
So, my memory will be distorted in some ways by the pictures. I'll try not to be dependent on them for what I have seen and heard and learned. George was right, it's not about the pictures. It's about the experience.
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