2011: All this stuff happened, Me Edition

In an entry that fulfills my interest in history and my desire to remember stuff later on here here is a brief recap of highlights from this past year. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

January: Started grad school at Lesley for teaching. Very nice building. Very expensive classes. Read a lot, got good grades. If it doesn’t sound exciting it did not exactly blow my mind either.

March: Ran a St Patty’s Day race in Somerville. 5k was fun. Free beverages after=winning.

May: Went down to West Virginia for the summer to work at my camp. Probably highlight of year simply because I hadn’t been there all summer since 2007. Hung out with some awesome people and had a blast teaching and entertaining tons of kids. Fun times.

August: Coached Cross Country for 2nd season at Lexington Christian Academy. Really enjoy Coaching, being involved in the sport. Boys team shrunk, girls team grew but good foundation set for next season.

September: Ran 10k in Concord for 2nd straight year, got 3rd place. Plan to win next year.

December: Went to Czech Republic for two weeks to visit old friends and teachers and to be a tourist a bit. Great fun and saw lots of people.

Had Christmas at home with the family it was good.

Overall 2011 was a good year. I only ran 400 miles though. Goal for 2012? At least 1,000. Let’s go.

King of Peace?

The world is apparently getting more peaceful. Sounds strange doesn’t it? But that is precisely the argument of a new book that has just come out called The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Recently the author has supplemented the press for his new book by writing an op-ed for the New York Times summarizing some of his views. You can check it out here.

After reading the article and a brief synopis of the book I feel like the author is truly onto something, at least on a macro level. Wars aren’t what they used to be. Countries’ borders change through violent takeover much less frequently than 100 years ago. It simply does not pay to be at war like it once did and so many countries have pursued a path of trade instead. There may be a few outliers but this does appear to be an overall trend.

Arguably violence has declined on the macro level. However on the micro, person to person level it is as bad as ever. Sex trafficking is rampant just about everywhere, including the United States. Rape is a weapon of war amongst feuding militias in Congo. Dictators like Mugabe, Assad and formerly Kim and Quaddafi murder their own citizens with complete impunity to remain in their positions of powers. This violence may not change national borders but it wreaks no less havoc on the lives and souls of millions.

On Christmas, Christians celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, who we believe was and is the Son of God. What does his admittedly humble, but nonetheless stunning entrance onto our planet mean for us? With the theme of peace in my mind I want to offer a few thoughts.

As Christians we are called first to love God and then one another. I am always amazed at how people complicate what is really a very simple and straightforward faith. Jesus himself said these were the first two commandants. Through these two basic principles our entire faith, worldview and life should come out clearly. We may not have the political power to change the literal shape of nations but we have the spiritual power to ease pain and suffering. I am not talking about healing people, though it may on occasion take that form. I’m talking about treating people, all people with inherent dignity and value because they have a creator just like we do. How insulting it must be to God when we hate each other enough to raise our words, our fists, our weapons in anger and  contempt? How could we have botched his wonderful creation with such evil?

As humans we separate ourselves. We are not humans: we are Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, smart or stupid, gay or straight, Western or Eastern. Our very nature seems to be to foster division. But that is not what Jesus intends at all. For in Him there is no, “Jew and Greek, slave or free, male or female.” God did not come to earth to condemn it, he came to save it. Every time we encourage, participate in, or sit silently by while another act of violence takes place, we forget that.

I am not naive. I am not against war in all circumstances. There is evil in this world and some I would argue at times deserves to be stopped by any means necessary. But this Christmas as we ponder the incredible paradox of Emmanuel, “GOD WITH US”, let us recommit ourselves to the love and peace that Jesus paid such a high price for us to know. Let us love not just our neighbor as ourselves but everyone we may happen to meet. Let’s make less of ourselves so that God may be seen all the more clearly. Lets create such a movement that one day an author would not just be writing about macro trends toward peace but micro ones. Let us love as Jesus loves.

Merry Christmas.

AFRICA.

A big pet peeve of mine is when someone means to refer to a specific country or part of Africa but instead just says Africa. It’s exotic and exciting and forbidding all at once but also overwhelmingly insulting to a continent that dwarfs North America in size and diversity. When I was in South Africa I had to watch DVD lectures by pastors and repeatedly they would list all the countries they had been to : Japan, China, India, Russia, Brazil and then invariably finish with: AFRICA. Morons. So you might be surprised that I titled my blog entry with the single word that normally infuriates me when others say it. Simply put I love Africa. The whole thing, from Tunisia in the north to South Africa in the, well you get the idea. When I say AFRICA, I mean the continent.

Given the title of my blog and how many people ask me what I’m going to teach when I tell them I am studying to be a teacher I figured this would be a good topic to write about. I would love to be the “Africa” teacher at a high school. I would offer a broad survey course of Africa covering the history of the continent generally over the course of a year. I would also love to if possible teach a more specific course on modern Africa from independence in the 50s and 60s to today.

So why Africa? I am honestly not sure. It’s one of those things that I can’t explain and I am willing to say simply that “God put it there.” I never use language like that so it really is a big deal. I love the place and have ever since I can remember. I remember in 6th grade I flipped ahead to one of the chapters in my social studies book my class had no chance of getting to. I started reading about this strange country I had never heard of called Burkina Faso. Alas its capital was even more intimidating. Ouagadougou. My first impulse was that I would never pronounce such a crazy name. It was quickly overwhelmed by a desire that I must master it. To my relief a few quick practice runs with the phonetic spelling revealed it was not that difficult and pretty fun to boot. (To those who are curious you say it like this “Wa-ga-du-gu.”) And so a love for a continent was born.

Africa is not a headline to me. It is not a disaster zone or a charity case. It is a living, vibrant, fascinating place bursting with potential. I remember flying over Namibia on my to South Africa, to AFRICA, for the first time in 2008. I looked out the airplane window and I saw glimpses of the land I had only read about in books and newspapers for years. I quickly ripped out a notebook and wrote out a prayer of some sort as I tried not to burst into tears. I suppose you could say it was love at first sight.

Regardless of how many cheeseball things I can say about the place I would love nothing more than to study this amazing continent and share what limited knowledge I have with young people for my career. I don’t really have a witty or thoughtful way to end this so I’ll just say this: AFRICA IS A WHOLE CONTINENT, NOT A COUNTRY. Please respect. Thanks much.

Imagine? or Reality?

Ever listen to the song Imagine by John Lennon? You probably have. It’s a famous song by one of the most iconic musicians of all time. So simple and yet so easy to listen to. Its message of world peace and unity has been trumpeted by celeb and common person alike as something for which we can only hope to achieve some day. Unfortunately the purpose of this entry is to show you that (in a somewhat roundabout way) the message of the song is a lie.

Last week I wrote a letter to the Boston Globe which was published. The gist of the letter was to explain that religions were different from each other and to claim otherwise, while a nice idea, was simply impossible. A letter next to mine made a similar point that it was perfectly reasonable for followers of a faith to believe in the certitude of their own beliefs. He then followed this logical statement with an absurd one: believing in your own faith doesn’t mean others have to be wrong. And then a week later a follow-up letter was written repeating and even endorsing this logical cartwheel of nonsense. Let me be clear. If you believe something different than me that is fine but do not come up with patronizing, anti-intellectual nonsense that our beliefs are somehow the same and “gee-golly wouldn’t it just be better if we got along?’ And this is why the song Imagine is so unhelpful.

It imagines a world without differences, and specifically religion. Nothing to die for and nothing to worry about in the future. Just live for today in unity and peace. Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop fighting and do whatever John Lennon tells us to do? It nice and pleasant and Utopian but also, completely devoid of reality. Wishing religion away isn’t going to eradicate it and it won’t make those who are intolerant and violent any less so. Saying that all religion is the same is a popular idea in our effectively secular, relativist, western culture recently. But saying it doesn’t make it close to being true.

I am a Christian. I believe some very specific things. One belief is that Jesus was the Son of God. Muslims don’t believe this. Jews don’t believe this. Hindus, Buddhists and certainly atheists don’t accept this. Saying this is so doesn’t make me intolerant or a bigot, it makes me logical. How much longer can smart, educated westerners keep pushing this idea that all religion is more or less the same? It’s not. More to the point, claiming this ridiculous “fact” does nothing to make the world more peaceful or solve any of the world’s problems (kind of like the song Imagine, thanks John Lennon, but no thanks.)

Religion is a complex multifaceted subject. It is not the cause of all violence, evil and death (see Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot circa 20th century) in the world and neither is it always a good thing. It deserves, as does any other subject, our honest and meaningful study. Imagining things about religion to make ourselves feel better that are, in fact, untrue is not helpful; it’s hallucination.

I respect where John Lennon and many others are coming from. We all want peace and justice and harmony. But manufacturing it from an intellectual black hole will not achieve anything. Being honest about what we believe, why we believe it and thriving to comes to terms with what that means for others will hopefully do so much more. There will always be extremists who want to kill, maim, destroy and manipulate. But hopefully as a society we can realize that these forces are no more indicative of true religion than the idea that all faiths are ultimately the same. Religion at its best can help drastically change society for the better. Let’s not imagine an impossible dream and do nothing but let’s do everything we can to make that dream we only could have imagined a reality. Like it or not, on this planet at least, religion will be involved.

Lazy Evangelism

While going through graduate school I am working at a gas station. Sounds unappealing I know but to be fair it’s not too bad most days. It’s a mile from my house which makes it impossible to be late (believe me, I’ve tried) and also helps me save on gas.  It’s in a perfect location by itself on a major state highway so it does great business and in a good shift I probably see a few hundred people. Some are weird, some are memorable, some pass by with me hardly noticing and a few are a bit quirky. This post is about some quirky ones.

A woman walked in a few weeks ago. Her head is buzzing back and forth everywhere, mainly because she can’t find anything. She locates the coffee corner and in the process of making her cup asks where everything is. It’s a pretty fun game of me pointing and yelling out directions and her looking exactly where I am not indicating. Against all odds she finishes making her cup and comes up to my register. She buys her cup and as she leaves she awkwardly passes me a Christian tract over the counter. A few days later another woman comes in and after walking out comes back in to hand me a mini New Testament and Psalms. A few days ago the same quirky coffee lady comes in, makes her cup and this time gives me two tracts.

Now before I give my full analysis of these two women’s actions let me be clear on something. I am a Christian who has no qualms about calling out what I see as misguided, hurtful, stupid or just plan wrong things that people of my faith do or say. However I was brought up to NEVER make fun of someone’s genuinely held beliefs. My next paragraph may come off as a bit harsh and perhaps even judgmental but whatever these women’s true beliefs are I respect them and the fact they believe in them strongly enough to do what they are doing. So now we are clear.

By all accounts these ladies are doing little more than lazy evangelism. They don’t know that I go to church, read the Bible, have done overseas missions work. They didn’t even ask. They awkwardly threw some printed words at me and ran out the door. What they seem to be avoiding is any attempt at building a relationship.

It occurs to me as I write this that maybe past (negative) experience has taught them not to build a conversation. Maybe they are simply part of a cult (though their tracts gives no indication of this.) Whatever the reason what they are doing seems completely antithetical to not only anything I would do but also to what the Bible says.

I just met you and the first thing I want to start talking about is religion and faith? Perhaps, but this misses the point. Talking to people you don’t know about ANYTHING personal is going to be awkward. After an introduction and perhaps some small talk things may start to emerge that lead in that direction. Given where I am in life its hard not to mention that before I started my teaching program I taught in the Czech Republic. Yes it was with a Christian organization and yes I considered myself a missionary of sorts. Total conversation time 3 minutes.

Here’s my point: these ladies mean well but by negating any responsibility to build any sort of relationship with the people they give materials to they are severely undercutting any positive effect their tracts hope to have. People are inherently relational and the  foundational theme of the Bible is that God was willing to go to such great lengths to be in relationship with us.

It’s not easy for me to talk to my customers if they don’t start the conversation themselves but next time these ladies come in I might just try and start one with them. At least that way I can say I wasn’t being lazy.

Beds.

Camp ended yesterday closing yet another chapter in my relative nomadic life. It was an amazing summer as I will relate shortly but it also continued my rather consistent pattern of going someplace temporarily, meeting awesome people and then leaving for an extended period. South Africa, Czech Republic and Camp have been some of the best and fulfilling parts of my life. But when they have ended I have realized how fleeting the time really is and how important the people I have met in those places are.

Summing up this summer is hard. In many ways it defies explanation. But as I was thinking about it one thing popped up in my head repeatedly and surprisingly enough that was the word “Beds.” Let me explain.

I arrived at Camp the day before Memorial day about two weeks before most of the summer staff arrived. My expectation was to do a few odd jobs around camp but mostly plan chapels and cabin bibles in my air conditioned office. My director had other plans. For the first week a few counselors and myself helped complete an entire inventory and massive rearranging of beds in camp. There were new wooden bunks that needed to be screwed together and old metal ones that needed to be (re)moved. We needed to find the optimal arrangement to fit as many as possible in each cabin and to get rid of all the old terrible ones. When we were done we took two huge trailer loads of beds to the scrap yard. It was hard work. In the end we had about 370 beds I never wanted to touch again. Of course that’s not what happened.

Each week I had to place kids in cabins by their age and gender. Doing head and bed counts were a vital part of this puzzle. It was pretty smooth until week six when with nearly 200 kids (and 80 staff),  we realized some creative bed placement needed to happen. Sure enough my fellow unit director and I found ourselves in the minutes before kids arrived scrambling to move bunks into cabins where singles did not suffice. It was a sweaty afternoon.

And finally today with only 20 people in camp a few fellow counselors and I moved some final bunks around to get to the original number we had reached in June. I really don’t want to carry a bed again in my life.  Beds can seem like a random theme to grab onto after a crazy, fast-paced summer but I think my experience with beds really exemplified my postion.

For the first time I was in a position of leadership at  camp. All roles require some ability and result in growth in leadership of course but this was really a step in a new direction for me. The biggest difference here was how often I was totally behind the scenes. And few things are more behind the scenes than beds. When you go some place do you think about the bed? Maybe you are worried about how it will feel but if you paid for a hotel room you’re not going to worry about there being a bed in the room. Of course there will be one. And that is the attitude that 1,100 campers had this summer. They were excited or worried about a million things about camp, but having a bed to sleep on probably didn’t cross their mind.

This summer I planned games, activities, chapels and cabin bibles. I dealt with homesick and problem campers one on one. I drove sick campers to the doctor and various staff to pick up or drop off points. And I made sure that every kid had a bed to sleep on. All behind the scenes. It wasn’t always fun or easy. It was certainly different than the camp experiences I had had before. But regardless of the changes, camp was still amazing. Kids and staff lives were changed this summer so much for the better. I wasn’t always directly involved, in fact most of the time I wasn’t. But I played a role in the great picture of the body of Christ that camp was this summer and for that I’m overwhelmingly grateful.

Not a Strategy, the Cornerstone.

This past Sunday there was a great article about Evangelicals in the paper. Being one myself it caught my eye and I read it with great interest. You can read it here. It gives a balanced portrayal of why evangelicals often get such a bad wrap in many circles while noting that many actually do a significant amount of good in the world. I think it was an article I would write if I was a journalist of a world famous newspaper. But I’m not so I’m happy to read such things for free.

I gravitated towards the comments section not because I care much for this section typically but because I wanted to see what people’s thoughts were on my faith and way of life. Predictably their was a whole grab bag of negative and postive thoughts. Some were interesting and thought-provoking. Many were worthless polemical dreck. One theme that stuck out to me though was the confusion from many about why Evangelicals couldn’t just do nice things apart from Jesus, religion etc. People need help, it feels nice to help, why get all messy with the Bible? Added to this was the generalization that Christians “only” do good works to further proselytizing efforts. I feel like a few short comments are warranted.

Jesus is not my strategy. He is not a gimmick, a selling point or a product that I am trying to purvey. He is the central cornerstone of  my life. His life,  example and existence informs everything that I believe and every action I decide (or don’t decide) to do. Having Jesus exist outside any good works I may do is simply not an option. I don’t tell people about Jesus because it makes me feel good, I do it because it just comes up. I will applaud good works wherever I see them and I will call out bigotry, hatred, homophobia, stupidity, sexism or anything else that is contrary to God’s incredible love for humanity.

I imagine that first sentence in my last paragraph lost a lot of you but if your still reading know this: I’m not asking, forcing, persuading, or trying to manipulate you into a false sense of religious security. I am living my life  for someone, something incredibly bigger then myself. In fact it is bigger than all of us. I have no idea what that will look for you. I do know that if Jesus is not in the picture it will be less than what it can be. We have been created to do good works not to glory in ourselves and our goodness but to exalt and proclaim Jesus.

One more personal example. This summer I have worked at a Christian camp for boys and girls ages 7-15. In my position of leadership I have been the one that my counselors have come to when they have a camper with an issue, serious or otherwise. I have talked to kids dealing with homesickness, bullying, and trouble in their home life. Just last week I spent 45 minutes consoling a boy who was literally cowering in the darkness because he was exhausted and scared of his cabin mates and any potential judgement they might dole out to him. It took every ounce of my patience and energy to console this camper enough for him to go to bed.

It should be noted that I would console a camper, child, person, human being regardless of their race, socioeconomic status, appearance, religion, political leaning or sexual orientation. I have no idea if this kid was a christian or if and when he will ever become one. But the important question is really “Does God love them?” Then I better do my best to mimic that the best I can. God is the cornerstone of my life and I hope it will be evident to whoever I come across.

My Journey with Camp (Part 3 of 3)

The next morning after my epiphany I got the news that the two biggest antagonists in my CIT program were being sent home for transgressions on their day off. A bit of me was sad; I didn’t want people to be sent home. But a larger side of me said, “Wow…God must really want me to pass this thing.” And so I set out to do it.

I gave devotions to my fellow CITS and even spoke to the whole camp as part of a chapel we did. The last week I shadowed a chief and stayed in a cabin. No major issues arose. When I sat down with my CIT director for my final evaluation I was confident. I got the sense he was not enormously impressed with me but it didn’t matter. I told him I had done what was expected of me as well as if not better than any of my peers. I think the big change here was not anything tangible it was simply a slight mental shift on my part. People were never going to treat me awesome everywhere, but that was not my responsibility. I simply had to do my best no matter what at all times. People could take it or leave it.

I passed my CIT.

My LIT was 11 summers ago. Since then I have been a chief all or parts of 6 summers. This summer I am a unit director. I plan activities and games, chapels and cabin bibles and am directly responsible for half the chiefs and campers in camp each week. It is in a word, unbelievable. Camp is amazing and fun, difficult and heartbreaking all at the same time. Without a doubt though, I love it. It is not the most glamorous or high-paying job and I realize many people may look at me and wonder why I am still doing this at 26. But overall I have gotten a tremendous amount of joy out of working at camp and will continue here for as long as I can.

My journey has not been short or simple. It has been marked by trials and missteps at every turn. But to close this long-winded episode of my life I’ll say this. God is there, however unnoticeably, working to turn you and me into the tools he desires to glorify him. And in that work, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.—Romans 8:28

 

My Journey with Camp (Part 2 of 3)

I took the next summer off. I went on a summer missions trip with my church. I think some people attribute too much import to this experience in terms of my growth. Did it help me grow and mature? Certainly it did. Was it the magic bullet that led to what occurred the following summer? Not really. Life is complex and lots of factors work together to bring change and realization. I was in contact with the camp director during the winter. He said if I wanted to do the CIT program next summer I would be welcome to. I still remember that first day I got back to camp, walked into the dining hall and shaking the hand of my LIT director from two summers before. He was cordial and was glad to see me. I was happy to be back and determined to succeed with my second chance.

The CIT program involves serving camp in whatever way needed. In my summer it entailed washing the dishes at every meal and cleaning the shower house and bathrooms around camp daily. I still remember pushing my mop bucket up a small hill one morning a few days into the program and breaking down for a moment. This was becoming almost as difficult as LIT.

It got worse.

The CIT is a month long program and as the first couple weeks passed I realized (unbelievably and inexplicably) that I was failing in the same way I failed LIT. My relationships with most of my fellow CITs were awful and my behavior was suffering because of this. This is still a huge question mark for me. I have never been popular or well understood by the majority. But one of the best things about camp was that I got along with most people really well. I had friends, I talked to girls. It was a fantastic alternate universe to my life at home and school. But with LIT and CIT I just could not get along with most of my peers to save my life.

Again here I see a failure of leadership to recognize what I was going through and to understand why I might have been struggling. At one point I was pranked by having shaving cream put in and on my sleeping bag. I was furious and walked across camp to talk to my CIT director. He listened to me but only meekly told the guys to lay off me. No attempt to understand or work with me, just a meaningless reprimand and a desire for me to just get along. I’m not trying to place blame solely on my leaders but to acknowledge that when a person does not get along with a group it is not solely their fault.

At this point however I had the epiphany of my whole experience. One night I realized I could not let the actions of my peers result in me failing again. I had to grow up, do my work and make it impossible to fail.

And quite surprisingly…I did.

 

My Journey with Camp (Part 1 of 3)

I have had a long and fruitful experience at my camp. I have never fully explained my camp story to people. It has not been a secret; at times I have told people openly bits and pieces. Having returned to camp this summer in a leadership position I thought now would be an appropriate time to write out what my journey looked like to this point. I’m telling this story, my story, because I think it is unique and it ultimately served as a vital shaper of who I am today as a person, a leader and a Christian.

I started at camp at the age of 8 or 9. Not the youngest possible age but still pretty early. I started with one week a summer but enjoyed it so much that when I was 13 I went three weeks and four weeks when I was 14. At this point I was ready to move on from being a camper and pursue what I thought was the ultimate job: camp counselor or “chief” as we call them at my camp. My camp has a two year process before you become a chief. First you do a three week Leadership in training (LIT) program when you are 15. This involves a week of backpacking, a week of canoeing and a week rock climbing and on a ropes course. It’s an intense experience but as I prepared to go I felt pretty confident. I knew camp, I knew this was what I wanted and I knew this was the next step. I was ready.

LIT was hell.

There is no nicer was to put it. Aside from certain moments being overseas, doing the LIT was the most difficult thing I have ever done. The funny thing is the physical part wasn’t the hard part. I could out hike anyone and my canoeing and climbing skills were tenacious if not precocious. The difficult thing was getting along with the other boys on my trip; I did that terribly. My leaders responded by failing to understand what I was going through and interpreting my sometimes exasperating behavior as unacceptable. I do not claim to be perfect but at a root level I think I was treated unfairly. This next part probably won’t mean much to people outside of camp but it was ultimately a significant and low point of my life.

I failed LIT.

To move onto the next year, the Counselor in Training (CIT) program, I needed to pass. I had a long conversation with my LIT leader that last night. I think I remember almost pleading with him. But ultimately he thought I needed more time to grow and mature. The clearest memory I have of that night is just bawling in the tent in front of the others. I was convinced I was never going to return to camp.