Peri Zahnd is a native of St. Joseph, Missouri--she travels often but always comes home. She and her husband Brian are the parents of four awesome children, Caleb, Aaron, Philip, and Word of Life Church. She has somehow acquired two remarkably beautiful daughter-in-laws, Ashlie and Sarah.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 4, 2006 at 4:08 AM
First entry! It should be very profound, an introduction to who I am. I have been meaning to do this for a while, but the technology kind of threw me. Okay, that makes me sound like a moron, which is not a very good introduction.
Today was Labor Day, which everyone knows is the end of summer. Last night, Brian and I went on a motorcycle ride, up to Conception Abbey. I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. It was dark when we got back and we were cold. We were putting the bike in the garage when Gary, our next door neighbor, came in and told us Philip was up at the A’s and that they had called the sheriff because there was a guy who has attended the church who has mental issues parked out in front of our house spray painting his car--they were all walking and he asked them if this was where the pastor lived. He left just before we arrived, and the sheriff arrived a little later. Nothing happened, but we all ended up at A’s eating leftover lasagna. I’m sure some people would be very surprised to learn some of the things you sometimes putup with in the ministry. This morning we found ared "X" had been painted on the street in front of our driveway. We believe there are angels assigned to our house and our kids and our stuff and ourselves!
I walked 4 miles withVickie this morning, then when I came in, Brian said, "Why didn’t you ask me to walk with you?"He was grinning, knowing that I didn’t ask him because I ask all the time, and he always declines. So I said, "I’ll walk with you!" and went ou t and walked another 4 miles. My thighs are tired tonight. Good!
Then I finalized the purchase of my new washer and dryer which is blue, extremely blue! I’m stepping out! I made a trip to the paint store and picked out some new paint for the walls. I’ve been putting this whole thing off for way too long--the agitator is barely moving in the machine, and I bought the dryer used over 20 years ago from someone who bought it used! Like the children of Israel whose shoes didn’t wear out--have you ever thought how much you would hate wearing the same pair of shoes for forty years.
So now I’ve begun....and getting started is always the hardest thing.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 4, 2006 at 5:21 AM
"The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ, don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know that ’a decent life’ is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable; but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear--the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy."
C.S. Lewis, Man or Rabbit?
This stripping off of the flesh is precisely what happened to Eustace during an encounter with Aslan in The Voyager of the Dawn Treader, one of the Narnia books.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 4, 2006 at 6:03 AM
When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side."
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 9, 2006 at 4:38 AM
The Life of Adoniram Judson by Courtney Anderson
Adoniram Judson was the first American foreign missionary, who went to Burma as a young man of 21. He lived a fascinating life--the book is as thrilling as a novel, but it’s a true story of a man who dared to do a great thing for God, and will certainly inspire anyone who reads it. I know I was directed by the Lord to this book, and it is still on my mind a few months and several books later.
The book was written in the 1950’s, less than 100 years after Judson’s death, and well researched and detailed. Judson was raised a PK, but lost his faith after going away to college. He became a Deist, to his family’s great horror--his mother and sister wailed and cried, saying "Now you’ve ruined heaven for us, how do you expect us to enjoy ourselves there when we know you’re burning in hell?" I got a kick out of that. A real family! Good religious folks! The concept of Providence is often referred to by Judson throughout his life--the arranging of circumstances by God for His purposes to be accomplished. The story of Providence bringing him back to faith gave me goosebumps--it’s too far-fetched to be good fiction, but it was TRUE!
Adoniram and his young bride of 3 days sailed for Burma, never expecting to see home or family again. She didn’t. They lived lives of great sacrifice, and Adoniram was imprisoned and severely tortured at one time for a period of several months. But there was no hint of a martyr’s complex here--they were happy and fulfilled people.
Adoniram had three wives, the first two died due to the extreme challenges on the mission field. After the death of Nancy, his first wife, and the two children they had together, he went into a severe grief/depression that lasted three years. He actually dug a hole at one point, his own grave, next to theirs, and wanted to crawl into it and die. As I saw the grace of God pull him through the slough of despond and bring him to a deeper, richer experience, I knew that same grace would always be there for me no matter what. He took a second wife who bore him many children, and they were incredibly happy. After many years, she died on the ship taking the family to America--his first return in 33 years.
His third wife was a real surprise--read the book to find out about her!
Adoniram penned these words as he was sailing home to Emily, that third wife, and passed by the place of his first wife’s grave:
I seem to have lived in several worlds; but you are the earthly sun that illuminates my present. My thoughts and affections revolve around you, and cling to your form, and face, and lips. Other luminaries have been extinguished in death. I think of them with mournful delight, and anticipate the time when we shall all shine together as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars forever and ever.
But this book was not a love story particularly--it was a life story. More than anything else, I benefited by seeing that his life was not a snapshot of any particular moment, but a life lived, day by day, to the glory of God. When all was said and done, it was the composite, that made his life such a beautiful success. Adoniram Judson lived a life worth living, a life worthy of the calling with which he’d been called. He fulfilled his destiny. I can’t wait to meet him someday, and I know I will!
RATING: 5 stars * * * * * (I might give all my reviewed books 5 stars, as I will probably only write about those I really like! I will review my best loved books, not in any order, just as I take a notion.)
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 21, 2007 at 5:28 AM
There is an old Jewish prayer that comes from the Talmud that I have grown to love. It’s a prayer that is reserved for very special days, especially a day one has been looking forward to for a long time. It goes like this:
Blessed art Thou, O Lord,
King of the Universe,
Who has kept us in life
Preserved us from death,
And has allowed us to reach this moment.
What a beautiful thought, what a beautiful prayer. But I think it’s one that should be prayed much more frequently, even every day. For life is a gift, a wonderful gift, that should never be taken for granted. This moment, this very moment, will soon be past and will never return. What you do with this moment matters.
I love this prayer too, from the Amplified Bible: And this I pray: that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight, so that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value, recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences. Philippians 1:9-10
Being fully alive means living each moment to its fullest, valuing what has value, and ignoring what doesn’t. I’ve recently discovered a new author I love, Wendell Berry. I read this just tonight in Hannah Coulter. These words leapt from the page.
You think winter will never end, and then, when you don’t expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light. Under the bare trees the wildflowers bloom so thick you can’t walk without stepping on them. The pastures turn green and the leaves come.
You look around presently, and it is summer. It has been dry for a while, maybe, and now it has rained. The world is so full and abundant it is like a pregnant woman carrying a child in one arm and leading another by the hand. Every puddle in the lane is ringed with sipping butterflies that fly up in a flutter when you walk past in the late morning on your way to get the mail.
And then it is fall and the cornfields are ripe and the calves are fat and shiny and the wooded valley sides are beautiful with color. The sun is bright, the air clear, and the shadows dark. There is the feeling of completion and storing up and getting ready.
You have consented to time and it is winter. The country seems bigger, for you can see through the bare trees. There are times when the woods is absolutely still and quiet. The house holds warmth. A wet snow comes in the night and covers the ground and clings to the trees, making the whole world white. For a while in the morning the world is perfect and beautiful. You think you will never forget.
You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind.
And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence.
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 26, 2007 at 4:37 AM
Brian reminded me of this picture, taken in 2006. It was in 1996, however, ten years before, that I first laid eyes on this very special place, the gate of Laish, or Dan, in the far north of Israel, near the Lebanese border. Laish was an ancient Canaanite city more than 4,000 years ago, and Abraham, who was journeying south into the land where God had called him, took his first steps into that land as he walked through the gate I stand before.
Laish was renamed Dan when it was conquered and settled by that Hebrew tribe five hundred years after Abraham lived, after Joshua led Israel into the promised land. From the book of Judges 18:27-29--" they proceeded to Laish, a people tranquil and unsuspecting, and they put them to the sword and burned down the town. There was none to come to the rescue, for it was distant from Sidon... They rebuilt the town and settled there, and they named the town Dan, after their ancestor Dan who was Israel’s son. Originally, however, the name of the town was Laish ." The city flourished under the control of the Hebrew people, but in the two millenia since they were exiled from their land, it had slowly eroded and become a forgotten ruin.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 14, 2007 at 6:48 AM
Happy New Year! Yes, I know it’s September, but Happy New Year! Happy 5768! It’s the Jewish New Year, and we’re celebrating the beginning of the year 5768. But it’s 2007! How can it be 5768? Answer—we live in two worlds.
To herald the beginning of the new year, the Jews of the Bible would blow a trumpet. Not a trumpet like we think of, a shiny metal hand-crafted instrument, but the shofar, the ram’s horn. A trumpet is a meticulously crafted, regimented, consistent instrument, but the shofar is wild—it comes from a live animal. Every shofar is different. The shofar produces a different sound, a wild sound.
posted by Peri Zahnd on October 22, 2007 at 1:45 AM
Good grief, has it really been more than a month since I blogged? I’ll blame it on Xanga... the daily subscription digest e-mail that kept me on track disappeared one day a couple of months ago, and then mysteriously reappeared last week. That happened once before. But it’s hard to be upset with a free service you’ve taken advantage of for months...
Last Friday was Savannah High School homecoming parade. It was a beautiful day. Philip, the sophomore, has had an insane schedule since school started trying to keep up with both marching band and the football team. Because he loves them both so much, we endure the craziness for the season, and then November comes bringing some much appreciated peace and tranquility. (well, sort of!)
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 3, 2007 at 1:35 AM
It is very very early on Saturday morning, and I’d gone to bed late with the pleasant feeling of knowing I could sleep late, and my bed was warm and cozy. So why am I standing outside in the dark in my robe and slippers, shivering in the 28 degree weather, after only four hours of sleep? Because I want to look at stars.
The night is very clear, the moon a fat sliver, and the stars are out in abundance. I stare at them for some time. So far away, farther than I can even comprehend. They speak to me of a world far bigger than I am, and remind me of a Creator who placed them in the heavens eons ago, who spoke them and everything else that is into existence.
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 5, 2007 at 5:08 AM
I get together on Monday nights with a small group of girls for prayer in the Upper Room. It’s a little group, anyone’s welcome to come, and there are several who come from time to time, but generally it’s just a handful. Tonight is the night, and I’ve been looking forward to it! I’ve missed the last two weeks being in Paris and a bunch before because my baby boy was playing football on Mondays. So tonight’s the night!
I love my prayer times with my sisters in Jesus, particularly when those times occur in the Upper Room, the prayer and worship chapel at our church. I can almost always count on coming away with much more peace and much more joy than I had previously—a glow that lingers throughout the night and into the next day. There is something special about being with my like-minded dear sisters, a fulfillment of that promise that Jesus made, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst." It’s very different from praying alone, although that’s vital. There’s also something very special about that place, a "thin place", a place set apart for nothing but prayer and worship.
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 23, 2007 at 3:48 AM
I woke up HAPPY today! And I didn’t have to get up any particular time, so I laid in bed for LONG time, just being happy, thinking happy thoughts, being thankful! That made me even happier!
Yesterday, we made an hour long trek down to South KC to Uncle Larry’s house, Brian’s dad’s brother. There was a big houseful of people, the cousins, grown up now, carting little cousins along with them, two sets of grandmas and grandpas, a spare friend or two. We had a delightful meal, and then visited all day long, way into the evening, until we all realized how tired we were and that we still had the trek home.
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 24, 2007 at 9:19 AM
What a horrible name for the day after Thanksgiving... leave it to the retailers to take the focus off a day of thankfulness to a day of frantic shopping!
I have never been Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I REFUSE to! I don’t like shopping that much anyway, but my kids... being kids...
...were excited about the middle of the night craziness. As I was heading off to bed about 10:30 Thanksgiving night, Aaron and Philip, ages 21 and 15, were making plans to go to Best Buy at 3:30 am to meet some friends, just for the fun of it. The store would open at 5 am, but they needed to get in line. Of course, Aaron explained, if it worked out, there was a hard drive he had been looking at that was regularly $300, on sale for $100.....and he had a gift card for $50. He and Sarah had driven by at 8:30 and seen a crowd gathered at the front doors. Some of them had tents! (On an asphalt parking lot? Bet that was comfortable.)
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 26, 2007 at 2:53 AM
There are many things that make a book "good". Was it entertaining? Did you learn something? Did it encourage you? But perhaps the biggest test is—How long did you think about it afterwards?
"Fallen" by David Maine was an interestingly creative piece of fiction that initially intrigued me because of the subject matter—Adam and Eve. It’s a little amazing that there have been so few attempts at fictionalizing their story, considering the importance of the story to all of us. I stumbled across this book on the internet and ordered it.
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 26, 2007 at 2:54 AM
This morning I watched the light come into the world. I watched the sky turn from black to grey and become fully light. The sun had risen, once again right on schedule, once again proclaiming the faithfulness of God. It was light out, I knew the sun had risen, I could once again see everything clearly. But the sun, although obviously present, was not visible. The color of my world was not bright and warm, but cool and grey. A cloud cover totally obscured the sun. Although it was there, it was not obvious.
I don’t mind cloudy days. I can handle a few cloudy days in a row. But too many will produce a longing for sunshine, a melancholy that will not be shaken. There is even a malady, Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D. for short) acknowledging that too many cloudy days will create a sad, depressed mood. And when the sun does finally pop out of the clouds after several days of cloud cover, it creates a thrill and an exclamation, "The sun’s out!" I always think a trumpet fanfare should accompany that appearance.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 2, 2007 at 3:01 AM
Last Tuesday was my parents 50 th wedding anniversary. They were married on Thanksgiving Eve, a Wednesday night, so that they could have a four day weekend honeymoon and be back to work on Monday morning. They were young, just 18 and 23.
Their three grown children were planning a surprise evening for them—they knew it was coming, they just didn’t know what. We wanted it to be a special evening for them, but part of the surprise was how special it turned out to be for the rest of us!
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 14, 2007 at 4:48 AM
The following was written several days ago, but posting was delayed due to The Great Ice Storm of 2007. We’re still without internet, but much more fortunate than many who still after four days have no power. More on that later.....
It’s 4am, and I don’t want to be awake. But I am. Lord, sometimes He talks to me at the most inconvenient times! Several days ago, Brian came to me with book in hand and said "You gotta hear this." That’s a frequent occurrence in our life. What he read me stuck in me, and I drug out of bed a little bit ago hoping he had underlined it in the book he was reading. Here is what I found:
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 16, 2007 at 9:42 AM
Wonder of wonders, the infinite God became one of us! He was born to a poor Jewish teenage girl whose family would have been horribly shamed, but lucky for them and for her, was hastily married under questionable circumstances. What a strange way for the Son of God to enter the earth!
I read Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt when it came out last Christmas, and it stayed with me. I didn’t agree with it all, especially the parts where Jesus as a child did miracles (more like magic tricks) but it did a good job of making Jesus human, something that’s tough to do. He had feelings, emotions, human emotions. Sometimes he was sad, sometimes he was puzzled. He had relatives, brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts. But he lived this life without sin, amazing. I’m re-reading it again, starting today!
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 22, 2007 at 12:04 PM
This afternoon we have experienced one of the biggest snowstorms I’ve seen around here in a few years--it started about 11 am and we have had some whiteout conditions and several inches of accumulation. Philip, who’s 15 and works at a car wash, called around 2 to tell me he’d been in a wreck riding with his boss, Scott, on the interstate. He assured me quickly he wasn’t hurt, and had waited until they got back to the carwash to tell me. Thank God for those angels that surround my family on the roads. He said it was a 50-car pileup--let’s hope there was some teenage exaggeration there. But the interstate is now closed all the way to Iowa due to the many accidents that were occurring. My daughter in law Ashlie is stuck at her Mom’s house about 20 miles up the highway and will be spending the night.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 24, 2007 at 7:49 AM
This is Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (aka Leo and Fyo) under the Christmas tree. What a life.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 27, 2007 at 3:19 AM
Summer, 1944. My dad, Ron, was 9 years old. Jack Howe, the neighbor boy who was fifteen and best friends with Ronnie’s big brother, was moving away with his family across the state to Hannibal, Missouri. The truck was packed and there was no room for the big toboggan, and so he made a gift of it to his buddy’s little brother.
I’m sure he never guessed how many years of fun our family would have with that sled. My dad kept it through his teen years, and we rode it countless winters through my childhood, and my children’s. There was room for four or five people, and the more you put on, the faster it flew.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 31, 2007 at 2:26 AM
A few blogs ago, I wrote about Leo almost getting in the hot tub with me. Leo is a boy, a tomcat, he’s big and he’s tough and fearless. He’s only six months old, but he’s huge, a big yellow cat. Tonight, New Year’s Eve, Pip and I cleared the snow and ice that accumulated today and got in the hot tub for a bit before going to our service at the church.
Once again, Leo hung around the edge acting like he wanted to get in, and we decided to help him over the little bit of fear that held him back. I reached out, grabbed him, and slowly submerged him in the warm water. He didn’t love it, but he didn’t hate it either. He didn’t struggle (much), and we let him swim a bit before I got out and took him in the house.
posted by Peri Zahnd on January 2, 2008 at 1:44 AM"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Trouble as a door of hope." --Hosea 2:14
This is the prophetic promise that our church is entering into the new year believing, that 2008 will be a year of new beginnings, and that our Father has opened a door of hope in the place of our troubles. It speaks of being brought into the wilderness, and finding something unexpected but very precious there.
posted by Peri Zahnd on January 10, 2008 at 10:23 AM
"People—they’re the worst." That’s a famous Seinfeld line that Brian and I laugh over a lot. There’s also an old preacher joke—"The ministry would be great if it weren’t for the people." People are everywhere—you can’t avoid them, although some people sure try!
I read something last week that I haven’t hardly stopped thinking about, an excerpt from a chapter of a book by an author I’ve never heard of, L.T. Jeyachandran. It’s part of a further unfolding of the word "community" that God has emphasized so strongly in our church, and it means so much more than hardly anyone understands.
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 8, 2008 at 2:17 PM
Of course, the other three seasons are perfect as well.I once had a woman ask me how I ever found any time to read.But reading is like breathing to me—it’s pretty high priority.
I finished God on Mute by Pete Grieg.I loved it.I loved his honesty, and the truth he presented in a very doctrinal, rational way, but still extremely accessible and clear.How do you handle it when God doesn’t answer your prayers the way you think he should?
I recommended this book to a lot of people.I got some negative feedback.One said that she felt her hope for God to answer her prayers diminished, that it seemed to throw cold water on her faith.I didn’t feel that way at all.
I think one of the greatest models for miracle faith is found in the biblical story of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego.What did those boys tell the most powerful man on earth right before they were thrown into the fiery furnace?"We believe our God CAN deliver us, and we believe He WILL deliver us.HOWEVER, even if He does not, we still won’t bow down and worship your image."
Their confession of God’s ability to miraculously deliver them, and that they indeed believed He would was FAITH!In fact, it was GREAT FAITH!But their final statement was a kind of greater faith, a deeper faith.In their statement of "even if He does not" they were proclaiming that they would continue to serve and worship Him alone.They were acknowledging that they were willing to worship beyond their understanding.And incidentally, they did get their prayers answered!They did get delivered.Their faith did prevail.It was essential that they "go for it."If they had just acquiesced to their fate, if they hadn’t believed for a miraculous deliverance, it most likely would not have happened.
I praise God for the strong faith heritage I have.I thank Him for all the incredible answers to prayer I’ve seen, honest to goodness miracles.I could, and probably should, write a book about the things I’ve seen our great God do. I thank Him for the ways He has delivered me when there wasn’t a chance in the world.I believe in GOING FOR IT!
I believe we have a mandate as believers to do that—to pray for the sick and see them recovered, to believe God for impossible things.The Bible says we are to pray without ceasing, and I’m praying more than I ever have in my life.My faith is bigger than it’s ever been, which is the way it ought to be—constantly increasing.However, I’m honest enough to admit I don’t bat 1.000.I don’t get every single one of my prayers answered the way I think it ought to be!
But I also believe that, as God’s children, we win even when we lose, that He is able to make all things work together for good for those who loved Him and are called according to His purpose.A great model for unanswered prayer is King David, who fought for his infant son’s life with fasting and unceasing prayers, but who, when the baby died, got up, worshipped God, and went on with life.He continued to trust and have great faith in his Father God.He was willing to worship beyond his understanding, and I am too.
I’d love to discuss the book with anyone.I’m three chapters into another great book, Water from a Deep Well, by Gerald Sittser.Each chapter is a historical overview of a different era of the church and what it can contribute to the Body of Christ today. The author makes the great point that every generation has made mistakes, but not the same ones.We have the advantage of coming along afterwards and can learn from what they did wrong but also what they did right. So far the book has been fabulous...but I’ll leave it at that for now!
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 21, 2008 at 3:43 AM
That's Lucknow, India, in case you didn't know...We arrived in New Delhi, India at about 8:30 pm Wednesday night, after getting on a plane in New York about 8:30 TUESDAY night. No, it wasn't a 24 hour flight, but there's an 11 1/2 hour time change--not 11, not 12, but 11 1/2, part of what makes India India. There was nothing too unusual about the airport, but I knew the moment we stepped outside we weren't in Kansas anymore!
Since we didn't find a hotel car waiting for us, we took a taxi. You pay at a little window for your particular destination, get a little slip of paper, and go to the front of the taxi queue--hopefully the taxi number matches the number on your paper. The cabby put our bags in the trunk of a well-used 1960s vintage Tata, and while he was doing so, the young boy who was hanging around wanting to help us with our bags tried to open the car door for me. But he couldn't get either the back or front door opened, and looked at me a little sheepishly, lowering his eyes in silent apology.
The cab driver tied his trunk shut with the rope that hung from the lid of the trunk and was able to wrench the door open. He got in the car, verified our destination, and we took off.
Riding in a taxi in India is an adventure that you can dread or just sit back and enjoy. I figure these guys drive these streets all the time and are used to it, so I don't sweat it. I was tempted to try to tell the guy we really weren't going to a fire or anything, but since his English was minimal and my Hindi is non-existent, I decided it just wasn't worth it.
This taxi creaked and rattled and the brakes squealed, and drivers in India pretty much keep one hand on the horn at all times. We pulled up right on the tail of a motorcycle two different times and blasted him with the horn until he moved over and let us pass. It's not road rage, and the motorcyclists are never offended, it's just the way it's done.
It was warm for 9 pm in February in New Delhi, a balmy 72 degrees, but even so, many people on the streets wore heavy winter jackets. It doesn't rain here in January and February, and the air was heavy with dust. You could see it illuminated in the headlights of oncoming vehicles, and smell it too, as well as lots of diesel exhaust. Mmmm, dirty diesel, my favorite scent.
We had a short night at the hotel--I slept from 10 pm till 3:30, and then laid awake until our 6 am wake up call--better than I expected! We had to leave for the domestic airport at 7:30, and our flight to Lucknow with PG and Lilly.
And here we are now, in Lucknow, enjoying the warm sunshine! The flowers are blooming and are beautiful. I guess if spring wasn't coming to us in St. Joe, we just came to it!
The first thing I saw as we exited the airport was a group of young boys playing what I first assumed was a pickup game of baseball, but quickly realized it was probably cricket. (They use a bat as well.) You don't see kids in America playing cricket, but that wasn't as unusual as the six or eight COWS that were grazing in the midst of their game. There was also a couple of goats...and nobody seemed to mind.
Our hotel is nice and roomy, overlooking a main road below. There is a constant flow of humanity--trucks, cars, buses, motorcycles, more often than not with at least two riders, autorickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, so many bicycles like the stars of the sky, you could never count how many you see at any given moment. The horns never stop honking. I don't see any cows at the moment, which is surprising. There go two bicycle rickshaws, each carrying four people, and those men look like they're pumping those bikes hard! Fortunately, the streets here are absolutely flat...
We leave for the beginning on the conference in just a few minutes--I'll dig my camera out and try to get a few pictures up soon....
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 22, 2008 at 8:25 PM
The pastors conference has been awesome—everybody is loving it and feeling like they are getting and understanding new revelations about the Kingdom of God.We arrived for the first meeting on Thursday evening, and were greeted by music and dancing and having our feet washed, as is the custom.Then we all danced in a throng together into the meeting place.Nope, this isn’t Kansas anymore.At one time Brian was picked up on the shoulders of some men and was moshed around.They did the same thing with the leaders of the conference.I was dragged into a circle of whirling women—the tribal girls are pretty rough and wild—there was no saying no.I guess it was an honor to dance with the American—I had lots of partners break in, and it wasn’t done gently. Red Rover, Red Rover.I was a head taller or more than most of the other women.That gives you a strange feeling.
There is a huge range of kinds of people here—from well-educated and genteel to illiterate tribals.There is one group of tribal women whose dress is very distinctive and who never seem to smile.They stand out in stark contrast to the rest who seem exuberantly happy.
Brian preached from 9:30 to 2 yesterday with only a brief break for tea.He preached "What Does It Means to be a Christian?" which was a series he did on Sunday mornings back home in January.It was fascinating to think about that message cross-culturally.At one point he was talking to the Indians and the particular challenges they face on a day to day basis—poverty, Hinduism, the caste system.He said Americans face very different challenges, but that they are very real as well.He told those Indians that Americans are killing themselves with their 200 kilometer an hour pace and the pressures they put on themselves to acquire material possessions.He warned them that as India continues to prosper, which is a very good thing, that they would have to beware the temptation to put too much emphasis on things and not people.
When we were finished, we went across the street to a government guest house, where we ate lunch and had a room to rest in until the evening meeting, rather than drive 45 minutes back to our hotel.We were going to eat our lunch out in the garden, but the proprietor said there was too much problem with the monkeys!That sounded intriguing to me, but PG, our host, said no.After lunch inside, I went out monkey hunting, but unfortunately didn’t find any!
The evening meeting went very well too.Worship was in full swing when we arrived.The meetings are being conducted in a conference center owned by a Christian ministry.The center is halfway between Lucknow and Kanpur, on Kanpur Road, which is the road that runs right in front of our hotel.There are 1000 people staying on the grounds, in rooms that encircle the large courtyard where the meetings take place.It is an open courtyard, but has a fabric canopy over it.The air is heavy and doesn’t move—it’s hot in February in there. (I’m sure it gets a lot hotter a month or two later.)All the dancing kicks up a lot of dust, and it was visible in the air when we arrived.The music is SO LOUD it hurts.It’s very Indian, very foreign, very wild.
Daybreak has come to Lucknow this morning.The pollution in the air here is most evident in the early morning as the sun struggles to break through.A dark haze covers the city.Power outages are frequent—they have occurred in every one of the meetings thus far, and just went out here in the hotel.The noise is probably the most annoying pollutant—the noise of all the cars/motorcycles/trucks on the road below, and particularly their nonstop blaring horns.By nonstop, I really mean nonstop.I awoke in the middle of the night last night, around 3am, and was aware something was different.It took me a moment to realize it was the quiet.I counted about 30 seconds before I heard another horn.The novelty airhorn variety is the worst.I can’t imagine wanting to drive through the city hearing those again and again!The traffic noise is despite the fact that we are on the fifth floor of this hotel with our windows closed.It sounds like we are right on the street.
India is full of problems, but there is incredible potential for change.Eighty percent of the people that IET ministers to are members of the Dalit caste, also known as the Untouchables, the lowest of the low.They are the people that are turning to Christianity in record numbers, because they are eager for change.And the gospel is making a huge difference in their lives.I’m praying we can be used to bless and help them.
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 26, 2008 at 5:32 AM
The conference in Lucknow was a great success—PG says the best ever. The people seemed to be very blessed and encouraged and strengthened and taught. We left the hotel every day at 9am, returning very late. We had a few hours in the afternoons at the government guest house across the street from the conference center. The second day as we were finishing our lunch, Brian pointed out the window and said, "Look, there’s a monkey in that tree." It was just a few feet away, and it turned out there was not one, but three. I went outside, and they were everywhere, running around, swinging from the trees, teasing the dogs who chased but never caught them. There were four on the roof of the building, including two tiny tots, clinging to their mothers. It was fun to watch them, but actually, they’re a little on the mean and nasty side. I don’t want to take any home with me. I’m content to visit them in India.
Monkey chasing is exhausting....
The Sunday morning service was more than five hours long. They recognized fifteen different missionaries who had received beatings in the past year for preaching the gospel, allowed them to tell their stories, and then the leaders honored them by washing their feet. They had been dishonored by men, but they are honored by God and the church. It took an hour for them to tell their stories, and how I wish it had been translated for us, but it was not. Shaji whispered a few details to us as the stories were being told. There was one woman among the group, perhaps a 30 year old woman from Indore, in the center of the country. She told how she and her husband were both arrested for preaching, and were separated and taken to the police station. Her four year old daughter was taken with her, and the woman was beaten by a policeman all the way to the station. She was kept in the jail for some days, and during that time sang and worshipped the Lord. When she began to do so, a woman jailer fell on the floor and began to have demonic convulsions. The woman prayed for her and she was set free. It seems she had had these fits all her life, and her husband had left her because of them. She has remained free, and the young missionary woman said it was worth the beating she received to see the woman set free.
Brian preached on a door of hope being opened for the church in India, a door of hope in the valley of trouble. At the end of the service, the people streamed through the "door of hope" with great rejoicing! I believe that great breakthroughs will occur this year for these missionaries.
We concluded the evening service with a candlelight ceremony. It was very moving. PG told the story of how he and Lilly first saw the cooking fires burning all over the mountains, and how they were challenged to take the light of the gospel to the people of India living in darkness. He told the stories of many of the first workers to join them, who I have come to know and love here in India.
posted by Peri Zahnd on March 3, 2008 at 1:24 PM
It was a great trip, and now I’m back home, trying hard not to succumb to the jetlag demons and go to bed at 7 pm....
This was my third trip to India, but I’ve come away with deeper and richer feelings about the place. I feel like India is in my blood now. It’s the most different place from where I live that I’ve ever visited. As Kipling so aptly put it a hundred years ago, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."
I was worn to a frazzle as we concluded the conference Sunday night—dozed in the car on the 45 minute trip back to the hotel, and then slept the night through, which is a real feat considering the noise. Yes, we’re on the fifth floor of the hotel, with the windows shut, but the noise from the street is deafening--every kind of horn you can imagine, being blown nonstop, and an occasional impromptu musical performance blaring on loudspeakers. In the morning, we checked out at 10 am, on our way to Varanasi. It was supposed to be a 2-3 hour car ride, but we were now hearing it was more likely to be six. It was about 300 kilometres, but with Indian road conditions that can easily be six hours.
It turned out to be a ride to remember. I was thinking of many of my American friends and thanking God they were not here with me—you know who you are! It was six hours of swerving and braking and hornblowing, dodging bicycles and trucks and other cars and rickshaws and animals and everything else imaginable. I was sitting in the back seat looking out the side window. We would frequently pass bicycles at 60 km/hr with what looked like only inches to spare, and the bicyclists never seemed to flinch. I looked out the front window a little, but the view was too harrowing. I thank God that in my entire life I have never been bothered with carsickness—if I was ever going to succumb, this was going to be it.
The ancient road was now paved, but in the same location it has been forever. Shops and stalls and houses lined most of the route, coming right up to the edge of the road. Children played, adults shopped, ate, bartered, made furniture, cooked, worked on vehicles, changed tires, slept, bathed—everything humans do, they were doing it. Villages turned into cities, and the traffic slowed further. Only now and then did we pass a small section of uninhabited ground.
This is India. Most people don’t live in the big cities, but the thousands and thousands of villages that cover the land. The more prosperous villages are located on the highways, like the ones I was seeing. The poorer villagers live far from the main roads, but in reality, it is hard to imagine poorer living conditions than what was passing before my eyes.
I saw lots of men relieving themselves—mostly they turned their back to the road, but it didn’t take much of a guess to know what they were doing. I also saw a few men bathing—squatted down with what looked like a sheet over them, and again, it was obvious what they were doing. I’m not sure where the ladies were taking care of business...perhaps they’re a bit more modest.
There were people napping here and there on crude homemade cots—do they have real beds in houses somewhere where they sleep at night? I don’t know. I saw many "barbershops"—single chairs outdoors in front of a large mirror nailed to the side of a tree. Haircuts cost 20 rupees here, about fifty cents.
Food was being cooked and eaten. Toddlers ran about in warm sweaters, but naked from the waist down--toilet training? Laundry was hung out to dry, on clotheslines and sometimes on bushes. Mechanics worked on cars. Life was happening.
When our driver stopped to get gas, I talked Lilly into walking a ways down the road with me, and our driver said he would pull over and pick us up when he caught up with us. I soon realized that there was about two inches of dry dusty dirt all along the side of the road. It was impossible to walk without kicking up a cloud around you. If I lived in India, I would soon tire of the dirt, the noise, the pollution, the traffic and the crowds.
Everywhere I looked, there were people, people, people. If India has more than three times as many people as the US, and the land mass is only a third our size, then that means the density of people is about ten times that of the US. It seemed like a lot more than that!
The road trip to Varanasi was an education in itself.
On our last day in India, back in Delhi, I finally got to see the apartment that our church helped to buy for PG and Lilly. They had never had a home of their own, were living in the basement of the ministry office, and we were thrilled to be able to bless God’s servants who had sacrificed so much their entire lives. They are really happy here.
The apartment is on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise complex on the outskirts of Delhi. As we approached the area, I suddenly saw dozens of very new, high tech, architecturally sophisticated skyscrapers. I was shocked. "What is all this?" I asked our driver. "Call centers" was his answer. It was unbelievable. I had seen handbills posted for "Spoken English Call Center Training." These are highly desirable jobs, very well paying jobs, but high stress, according to the driver. Of course they are high stress. Imagine talking to irate Americans all day long, angry because they can’t understand your accent! Oh people, be kind!
We also passed a glitzy mall that reminded me of a Galleria. Our driver said there were twenty malls like it nearby. I was stunned.
We arrived at the apartment, and PG and Lilly were so happy to be able to show it to us. It is very modest on American standards, but it is located in such a booming area that their initial investment has now appreciated four to five times in four years! The value is comparable to East and West Coast housing costs in the US. Lilly says her favorite part is that she can wake up in the morning and see the sunrise from her bed. I looked down from the balcony (fifteen floors!) and everywhere I looked construction crews, men in hard hats, were working. It was dark now, but I am told that construction continues 24 hours a day. The foundations have been laid for another huge highrise directly in front of PG and Lilly’s building, but fortunately that building is only twelve floors, so Lilly’s view of the sunrise will not be blocked! I think our Father in heaven may have helped to engineer that.
India is definitely changing, has changed significantly since I was last there five years ago. There is an emerging middle class that is highly educated and motivated. The economy is going up, up, up. But extreme poverty remains for a huge percentage of the population, with living conditions that would never be tolerated for anyone in our country. I would like to think that as the economy improves that those living conditions will also improve for all. But in a country where the caste system rules and Hinduism prevails, I fear that is not going to happen. The gospel is the only answer for India. The Kingdom of Jesus is the only thing that will make a difference. May His Kingdom come, and His will be done!
posted by Peri Zahnd on March 23, 2008 at 8:32 PM
It's Easter--we're celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead! And rightly should we--in any way we can possibly celebrate! We had a feast this afternoon after church--forget eating healthy, ignore the calories--that can all wait until tomorrow! We had ham, scalloped potatoes, and about six side dishes. Everything was awesome, including the homemade rolls--I ate two of them, slathered with butter. I knew there was a delicious lemon meringue pie waiting at the end of the meal, but that didn't slow me down. And I didn't just have one piece of pie, I had half of someone else's as well, with a cappucchino to finish it off.
After lunch, I had started cleaning up when it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like passing out, and crawled off to the sofa, leaving the kitchen in a shambles. I grabbed a pillow and prayed for sleep to quickly overtake me as I felt lightheaded and miserable. My prayers were immediately answered, and I think I was out for about half an hour, as my blood sugar fought to recover from the assault it had encountered.
When I awoke, I laid there and wondered why I had eaten so much. Yes, it felt good while it was going in my mouth, but the lasting effects weren't so great. I felt like a slug most of the rest of the day. I recovered enough to play Scrabble with the family, but I continued to chastise myself for my frenzied, gluttonous fit. I had momentarily forgotten that I prefer to eat healthy not because I am self-righteous or think I'm better than others or that I'm obsessed with how I look in a bathing suit (oh, please!) but simply because I FEEL better when I make an effort to limit my intake of sugar and simple carbs and highly processed foods.
So tomorrow is Monday, the sun will rise in the morning and it will be a new day. And like every day, it's an opportunity for a new beginning. And I'll be hoping someone else will finish up that luscious pie--which tastes so good but leaves me feeling not so good in the end. I'll remind myself that it's worth it to deny immediate gratification and reap longer term benefits. I'll hopefully take a nice long walk or exercise in some way that will get my blood flowing, my metabolism stimulated, and my feel-good endorphins circulating!
Was it a sin? Oh, who knows! If it was, God forgives me. It's not a big deal. But there's something to consider here--I know the right way to eat, and I pay a price when I don't. A little bit of pie, once in a while, one roll--would have been perfectly fine. Pie and hot rolls fresh from the oven are good things--wonderful things! That is, when eaten in moderation, when a little self control is shown.
There are parallels that have much farther reaching effects. There are so many good things that God has created for us to enjoy, but when we use them in wrong ways, we can suffer incredibly. I'm thinking of someone I've been trying to help who is suffering deep emotional wounds because of a casual sexual encounter--wrongful use of something God created to be a blessing. It's not that God is angry and can't forgive her, but that this woman can't forgive herself. Why does God hate sin so much? Not because He is so personally offended, but because He knows the damage it causes.
God is not a harsh, moralistic goody-goody whose ears burn at the thought of sin, but a Father who loves us intensely and knows exactly what we need to be healthy in body, soul, and spirit. Not only will a diet that consists of soda pop and twinkies make us miserable, but so will a heart given over to unforgiveness or to anger or to pornography.
We're on a journey, learning lessons along the way. We are hopefully beginning to understand why God has told us to do certain things and not to do certain other things. It's not a random list of commands, but commands all designed for our ultimate good. If I want the best for me, I need to pay attention.
I'm going to bake another lemon meringue pie next Easter. But I'm going to remind myself that I'll feel better later if I simply enjoy a nice little piece--I don't want TOO MUCH of a good thing!
posted by Peri Zahnd on April 3, 2008 at 6:09 PM
On Tuesday our church staff put aside our regular tasks to go pick up trash. No, it wasn't glamorous. But I had been aghast at the huge amount of trash that had been thrown out of car windows defiling our fair city, and decided we could at least take care of the two roads leading to our church building. It was overcast and windy, which made our job a little less pleasant, but doing it together made it fun.
Walking about four miles of roadway on Cook and Riverside Roads, we filled approximately fifty large trash bags--that is, a full pickup bed and two trailers, which filled up an empty dumpster, and that’s not including the decomposing deer carcass. It was an unbelievable amount of trash.
Some observations we made:
1.Beer drinkers in our city are decidedly health conscious—almost all the bottles were lite beer, and Miller Lite seems to be on top.
2.The beer bottles outnumbered the soda cans 10-1. We decided this doesn’t mean ten times more beer than soda pop gets consumed in our city, but that beer drinkers are more likely to toss their trash out the window. We found a surprising amount of full, unopened bottles of beer—perhaps people are worried about getting caught with it in their cars?
3.Most of the paper trash is related to fast food.
4.There was very little other trash of any interest whatsoever.
5.All that bending, stretching, squatting, and hefting is far more exhausting than you would think.
I was excited to drive to work the next morning. I was anticipating an amazing difference. It did look much cleaner. It looked different to me, since I had been so aware and disgusted by the mess. But driving down Cook Road, I admitted to myself that the absence of trash is not something people notice. What gets noticed is TRASH. I was also quite indignant to notice the Hardee’s sack and two drink cups that had shown up overnight.
TRASH. It’s the ugly part of life, but admittedly, there’s a lot of it. There was far more laying there by the side of the road than we would have guessed. And there’s not much glory in picking it up. But I’m glad we did, even though it will re-accumulate, and need to be done again.
I’m a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Last Friday’s message at church asked the revealing question, "Why Do You Want to be a Christian?" That’s a great question—how we answer that in our own mind will greatly affect the quality of our Christian life. I want to be a Christian because I want to participate in God’s plan to redeem creation, and creation includes me. I recognize the world is full of trash—I not only want to go pick it up on the streets, but I want to get it out of my life and help others to get it out of theirs. So what we did was a prophetic declaration of what we’ve committed our lives as a church staff to.
We could have looked at the trash, condemned it, said, "That’s not my trash." That’s what good Pharisees would do. Jesus joined the human race and gave himself up to the purpose of redeeming creation. I deal every day with trash in the lives of people who are in the process of being salvaged. Picking up beer bottles and paper was a bit of a break, but a reminder that what we do everyday is eternally valuable.
One night last week I walked through the kitchen and glanced through the sliding glass door where Brian was sitting reading on the deck. I noticed one of our three cats, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, eating from the bowl of food by the backdoor, just a few feet away from where Brian sat. But I looked again at the cat—his tail looked a little fuller and fatter, and I moved around to see his face. It wasn’t Fyo, the calico cat, it was a RACCOON! I rapped on the window to get Brian’s attention—he turned around and then yelled "Hey!"The critter looked at him calmly for a minute, and then stuck his face back in the bowl."Hey, get out of here!" Brian yelled again, and got up to chase him off.The coon reluctantly ambled over to the steps and down. Leo, the big yellow tomcat, (that’s Leo Tolstoy) who had been sprawled out under the table got up when Brian yelled, and walked placidly down the steps with the coon....
posted by Peri Zahnd on June 18, 2008 at 10:36 PM
Salman Rushdie, our pet raccoon, has returned--that is, has emerged from hiding, and is once again enjoying sharing meals with the three cats at the back door. The animals are very relaxed and cordial with one another--they seem to be unaware of any differences in species. It's good to see them interacting without prejudice and intolerance, much better than some people I know. A human guest at our house last night made some disparaging comments about Salman and even made threats involving firearms. We made it clear how we felt about that.
The big news is that Salman has apparently given BIRTH since she last visited. Therefore Salman has become Salmonella!
I feel a tad guilty saying this, but I do hope she doesn't start bringing the kids around. Enough is enough.
posted by Peri Zahnd on June 21, 2008 at 9:26 PM
I am taking a break from practicing the violin to write this blog. Yes, the violin. It’s been a lifelong desire, and I have just had my third lesson. And I can verify that the comments I have heard all my life about listening to a beginning violinist practice being a very annoying experience are indeed true. I once thought my opportunity to learn had passed me by. But I have changed my thinking. My new way of thinking has influenced me in many ways, and so at the ripe old age of....
posted by Peri Zahnd on June 26, 2008 at 5:32 PM
I've heard it said, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." Ain't that the truth!
Dear Lord, I don't want to die! It really irks me that I'm getting older. It seems a giant waste, all this experience that has taken so long to accumulate. Youth is wasted on the young. No offense to the young, whoever you are, we've all been there. But I wouldn't go back to being eighteen again, UNLESS I could somehow compress all the life experiences I've had into six months, but then again, those six months would have killed me for sure. It really does take a lifetime to learn how to live. It seems to be a bad system, O Lord, no disrespect intended, spending our lives acquiring very valuable knowledge and skills, just to fade away in the end. The idea of some kind of "eternal rest" actually horrifies me--yeah, I like taking a day off now and then but resting forever sounds like torture. You know I like doing stuff!
Oh Lord, I've heard the talk about heaven, streets of gold and pearly gates and all, but I have to tell the truth, I really love this earth you created, and I've only had the chance to explore such a little bit of it....
posted by Peri Zahnd on June 29, 2008 at 7:38 PM
My grandparents were born at the turn of the century and lived long lives—I used to marvel at the degree of change they experienced in their lifetimes. They were born into homes without telephones or automobiles. I didn’t figure I’d ever see that amount of transformation in my life—everything we needed had already been invented.
But I grew up in a home without air-conditioning, as did most of my friends. I remember hot sweaty nights, lying on the top of the bed without covers, a fan pointed directly at me. My parents later had central air installed, but when I got my married it was back to the fans. On particularly hot summer nights we’d run the tub full of cold water and soak in it every few hours. After a few years, we got two noisy window air conditioners—a big one in the living room and a small one in our bedroom. The roar in your ears was a trade-off for the heat. My two oldest sons may remember a few years without an air-conditioned house, but the youngest has always had the luxury of central air....
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 21, 2008 at 11:44 AMFor those who don't know.....Peri Zahnd becomes Miss Lucy when she's in the mountains, and her main man is Mr. Jinks.
It’s become a familiar occurrence—the alarm clock going off once a year at 1 am during our family vacation—the wake-up call for the Longs Peak climb. The past two years I got up and dressed silently along with the others in the clothes that had been carefully laid out just a few hours before, gulped down a bowl of Cheerios, and hiked the six and a half miles with the summitters, only to wave good-bye at the Keyhole. I would have done the same today, but the guys weren’t going the Keyhole route, wanting to try the Loft, and would be turning off at Chasm Junction, so I made other plans for the day.
Since I wanted the car, I’d need to drive them to the trailhead. So instead of getting up when they did, I laid there and began to dread returning at 2:15 am to this remote house we had rented halfway up the side of Prospect Mountain. Our road dead-ended after several switchbacks at the house, and there was a climb up a set of steps past a bushy tree that hung over the stairs. As Jinks would put it, I had a case of "bear on the brain."
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 20, 2008 at 6:45 AM
We’ve been talking about the world, the "cosmos", and what the Bible has to say about it. John 3:16—"For God so loved THE WORLD" and didn’t send his only son into the world to condemn it, but to SAVE it. However, the same man, John wrote in his epistle that we should "love not THE WORLD." And so I love the world, but I don’t love it.....another one of the ditches we humans are called to straddle.
But it’s true, I love the world, INTENSELY, but there are some things I really hate. I sat down to think about those things briefly, and I made some lists...
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 30, 2008 at 12:10 PM
I walked into the garage today and saw my car had a flat tire. And so in anguish I cried out with a loud voice, "O God, WHY? Why has this happened to me?" Just kidding. It was pretty apparent why this had happened to me. Closer examination revealed a nail stuck in the tire. I had picked it up somewhere. It’s not the first time. I’ll have to take it in and get it fixed. Life will go on.
Sometimes horrible things DO happen. Sometimes we do cry out, "Why LORD???" And generally, all we get from God is silence. I was pondering why we hold God responsible for the big horrible things, but just generally accept the little annoyances of life, understanding it’s just part of the way things are.
Tires aren’t evil—they keep us moving. Nails aren’t evil either—they hold stuff together. They just aren’t good together. Get a grip.
posted by Peri Zahnd on August 31, 2008 at 10:31 PM
I frequently have dreams where I dream I’m dreaming. Or maybe I wake up and realize I’m dreaming? I’m not sure....like this one I had last night......
I was on a road trip, going down the interstate, all by myself, pulling a big trailer with another small trailer attached to that one. I pulled off at an exit to get a snack—it looked a lot like the Quik Trip at Platte City. I got in the truck to get back on the highway, but instead of the entrance ramp, I turned into a small lane that quickly got a whole lot smaller, was hemmed in by bushes, and dead-ended abruptly. I was stuck in the woods with that rig, and the only way out was to back it up.
What a mess. I climbed out of the truck and surveyed the situation. I knew there was a way to back up a trailer--that my son Aaron knew how. It somehow involved turning your wheels the opposite way you wanted to go. But I was pulling TWO trailers. I was stumped.
I walked around for a while, trying to figure it out. And I realized I wasn’t going to get out of there without some help. So I walked out of the woods, and was thrilled to see a pack of twelve year old boys going by on bicycles. I flagged them down, asked them to come help me. They followed me into the woods. There were enough of them that I figured they could LIFT the trailers up so that I could just back the whole thing up.
It took some time to explain to the boys what we were going to do, to get everyone organized. I was in the middle of doing that when I was rudely interrupted by the realization that this was just a DREAM!—that I didn’t have to get that rig out of there after all. That made me MAD! because I’d gone to a lot of effort to sort this thing out, and I wasn’t about to go off and leave it without the satisfaction of a job well done. So I went back and started trying to hurriedly get the thing out of there, before I woke up and ruined the whole thing, but it was too late, and suddenly I found myself lying on my back in bed wondering what in the world that was all about.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 11, 2008 at 5:10 PM
I just finished this book....I'll give it 6 stars on a 5-star scale. it was very impacting and timely. This is a story about a particularly hard time in American history, but it is also about the sometimes crushing effects of "progress"--what happens when government and everything else gets bigger and bigger and little people get destroyed and left behind. It exposes the ugliness of greed--getting rich by exploiting the poor. The prose was powerful and driving--invoked a sense of inevitability and urgency.
It also exposed the ugliness of religious fanaticism. There is a preacher who has left preaching behind in his disillusionment, but you begin to see that his struggle is a journey towards real life and truth. He came out of the certainty of his religion--he thought he'd become lost, but he was really finding his way. He came out of a religion that was devoid of life and finally begins to see the truth, awakes to true life and finds satisfaction in his God-given mission.
If you've seen the movie, it's like reading the back cover of the book--not a bad introduction.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 15, 2008 at 6:28 AM
"The deep fear behind every loss is that we have been abandoned by the God who should have saved us. The transforming moment in Christian conversion comes when we realize that even God has left us. We then discover it was not God, but our image of God that abandoned us.... Only then is change possible." --Craig Barnes
Christian conversion--isn't that what happens when we ask God to save us? Oh yes, but so much more--we need to continue to be converted, to be transformed, to have not only our "souls" saved, but our minds. We come to Him with such a pathetic limited understanding of who God is, sometimes even a wrong one, but He in His mercy takes us where we are, and at the same time is never content to leave us there.
Life happens. Sometimes in the most unexpected ways. It seems like only in the storms of life can we learn the truth--that NOTHING, not life, not death, not angels or demons, neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's good enough for me.
posted by Peri Zahnd on September 17, 2008 at 9:13 AM
That was the headline of an AP article in Monday's Kansas City Star--all about deep vein thrombosis and the US Surgeon General's campaign to bring more public awareness to a medical problem that kills more than 100,000 Americans a year. That's what unexpectedly landed me in the hospital for four days last week.
I am thankful to God for the way He arranged circumstances to get me to the Emergency Room when I thought I could tough it out, and for great medical care, and the development of drugs that got me back on my feet in a hurry. I'm thankful for God's protection and sustaining power that kept pieces of a "massive" clot from breaking off and moving to my lungs while this thing was growing for probably a month. I'm thankful for friends and family who cared and prayed and were there for me.
This article is really worth reading. And it might help save your life some day.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 6, 2008 at 10:15 PM
In 1965, when I was five years old, we moved into the neighborhood I would live in for the rest of my childhood years, a home with a big backyard, lots of trees, and a long line of lilac bushes that divided our yard from the neighbors. Our neighbors were a childless couple in their late forties who quickly grew to love me, my brother, and then the little sister who came along a few years later.
Arthur was a big man with a nice smile who never said very much. His wife Alberta, who was just Bert to us, did all the talking, and she did love to talk. She talked a mile a minute, and Arthur, or Art, just smiled behind her. He worked at the local brewery, and kept his yard neat and tidy. I remember him pushing the mower around the backyard, always wearing elastic waist shorts pulled up high on his belly, no shirt, knee-high white socks, and brown leather loafers. Art had a vegetable garden, and long rows of raspberry bushes that he kept neatly pruned and weeded.
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 19, 2008 at 5:38 PM
Yes, Happy Holidays! Happy Holy Days! All of them! I'm sorry that some Christian people are angry when they are greeted this way by checkout clerks while Christmas shopping. I hope they don't respond in sanctimonious sarcasm, with their offended noses tilted in the air, "No, it's MERRY CHRISSSTTTMASSS!!!"
I think it’s wonderful that American culture recognizes and celebrates an entire season of holy days, beginning with Thanksgiving, a day set aside for being grateful, and ending with New Year’s Day, a day of looking forward to new beginnings. Two holy days, a day of reflecting on the past year and recognizing how much we have to be grateful for, and another holy day of looking forward to the coming year with faith and hope, surround the holiest of days, the holy of holies, the day that makes the other two possible. The holiest of holy days, Christmas Day, is the day that God became a man, came and dwelt among us, and changed everything.It is this day that gives us hope for the future, for without it, life would be hopeless.
We do need an entire season to reflect on this great gift, the greatest gift ever given, the greatest gift we have ever received.Each year that I celebrate Christmas I enjoy it more, understanding a little more the mystery and the miracle that it is.The gratitude I feel at Thanksgiving is the entrance into the mystery of the Incarnation, culminating in an ever-startling revelation that because of the finished work of Christ, every day is a new beginning, every new year fresh with possibility.Christmas is the greatest wonder of all.
So, Happy Holidays!All of them!Celebrate the Trinity of Holy Days!Rejoice in the one who is able to turn sorrow into laughter, who will someday wipe all the tears from our eyes, cause all things to work together for good in our lives, and make everything new again.Merry Christmas!
posted by Peri Zahnd on December 31, 2008 at 7:28 PM
The last week of December has some of the shortest days of the year.It is the time of the year when darkness falls all of a sudden, as if the sun, after a day of shining with all its might, desperately but futilely trying to warm a frigid world, reaches the horizon, strains valiantly to stay up a little longer, but collapses in exhaustion down below.Darkness prevails in no time, and with it, the cold intensifies its grip.
Driving home late this afternoon, I saw at the same time three different flocks of geese flying overhead.They were each veering in different directions, somewhat haphazardly and randomly.I don’t know enough about geese.I know that they always fly in groups, always in V-formation.There is always a leader who has two different contrails streaming behind him.Why aren’t these contrails, or kite tails, ever the same length?Why is it that only the lead goose can start the V?Couldn’t any other goose randomly have two streams behind him, so that the flock wouldn’t resemble a V, but many V’s within the one V?But that never happens.
Why do the geese honk?Do they always honk while flying, or do they ever have quiet time?Where are they all going?Why now?I went outdoors very late a few nights ago, when the temperature was near zero.It was so very quiet, nothing like a noisy summer evening, as if the cold was muffling all the sounds, or maybe the snow had blanketed and soundproofed the entire outdoors.Suddenly, the stillness was broken by a flock of geese flying overhead, honking madly, flapping their wings frantically.They were going somewhere in a hurry, maybe, or perhaps just flying around trying to warm up?
There are so many things I don’t know, but I do know that the heavens declare the glory of God.The geese give glory to God.Their formations, their honking all give glory to God.The cold speaks of the majesty of God, gives glory to God.And in noticing all of this, in living on this beautiful planet He has created, I too give glory to God.
posted by Peri Zahnd on January 23, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Brian and I have just returned from leading our 10th tour of Israel, and we both say it was the best yet.You’d think it would be boring by now, seeing the same old things time after time.How could it be the best yet?I’ve been asked this more than once the past few days, and have actually thought a lot about how to answer.
Perhaps it’s in our philosophical approach to life—refusing to live the jaded, cynical life so many in our culture have fallen prey to, (been there, done that) but instead delighting to live in the freshness of experiencing everything we possibly can to its fullness.Israel is not a tourist destination to us, so that we can mark individual sites off a checklist, but a pilgrimage, a spiritual encounter, a fulfillment of the longing to understand the world we live in, and to comprehend some of the mysteries of the Kingdom that God created to restore all things back to their original goodness.
We have been to Israel so many times now that we’re beginning to understand a tiny bit of the complexities of living in the Middle East.We have good friends among the Jewish people.I started and finished two books during this trip, primarily in airports and on airplanes, both about the Holocaust, a subject that I have read extensively about, and will continue to do so.It is impossible for me to fathom how this horrendous event has shaped the collective consciousness of the Jewish people.Much of the intense passion to once again have a land of their own, and to keep that land, was forged in the fires of the ovens of Auschwitz.It is impossible for me to know what it’s like to know that, in modern times, there have been and still are people who diabolically want to destroy you and your family simply because of your ethnicity.One morning, having breakfast in our hotel, I watched a young family at another table—abeautiful young woman, her husband, and four little children.The boy was perhaps eight years old, and had three lively little sisters, all with beautiful long dark hair.They were Jewish.I watched them and felt tears well up in my eyes when I realized there were many young families just like them who perished in European death camps 65 years ago.
And I’ve become more aware in the last couple of years of the sad plight of Arab Christians living in the Middle East.Many people think that all Arabs are Muslim, which is absolutely not true.There has always been a historic Arab church in the Middle East—predominantly Orthodox—Greeks, Syrians, Armenian, and Coptic Egyptians.The nation of Lebanon has always had a majority population of Christians—more people identifying themselves as Christian than Muslim or Jew.Always, that is, until the last decade or so, when increasingly hostile persecution has forced them to flee the land in huge numbers.
On this trip, we met many Arab Christians and interacted with them.We met a couple who pastor a church in Northern Israel, near the Lebanese border, whose church is comprised of Lebanese refugees.We met pastors from Bethlehem, where the previously majority Christian population has also been driven away.Previously the Muslims and Christians there lived together peaceably, but no longer.We met and talked to Christian business people, some selling souvenirs to tourists, and one man who had just opened a coffee shop—the best coffee we had in Israel!We met a Christian family in another Palestinean controlled city whose previously prosperous business has suffered incredibly, simply because they are Christians.These Arab Christians desperately need the help of their brothers and sisters around the world.They need encouragement, love, and support.We would very much like to return to Israel soon, not leading a tour, but instead a trip spent ministering to Arab Christians.
And, of course, we were very aware of the heart-breaking events going on in Gaza.Jewish Israelis expressed sadness about the war—but still say it had to be done.When we were in Israel in 2006, we visited Gaza, something very few Americans can say they’ve done!We had to send photocopies of our passports two weeks ahead of time to get government clearance, and even then, knew we could be turned away when we tried to go in.It is against the law for Israeli citizens to visit Gaza, and it is impossible for most of the inhabitants of Gaza to ever leave.It IS a prison, a maximum security prison, and entering into Gaza is no less daunting than entering a maximum security prison in America.
While we were there, we met and had lunch with a Muslim man who we love and pray for frequently.He is a highly educated professional, who is no longer working in the field he was trained in, but instead has started an NGO dedicated to teaching peace to the Muslim people.He loves peace, and he is a seeker of truth, but has only seen in his life a fleeting glimpse of Christianity.Our prayer is that he will come to find Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Since the war in Gaza began, his Christian friends in Israel have had minimal contact, and the last time they spoke with him, he was hiding in his house with his wife and four children.They were very afraid.Since then, cell phones have been disabled, as well as internet.We know nothing about their well-being, and I am continuing to pray for this dear family.
When we were in Gaza in 2006, more than anything, it was a sense of hopelessness that prevailed.Families living there had no hope for a better life, struggling with massive unemployment, the most crowded living conditions on Earth, and constant fear of violence.Their captivity and separation from the rest of the world breeds further unrest and violence, just like the prisons of our country.The plight of the Palestinians is as sad a situation as I know.And the only answer for them is the Kingdom of God coming to Earth in a greater way.
And so, on this trip to Israel, I felt a kinship, a brotherhood, with the people of that land—the Jews, the Arab Christians, and the Palestineans.I love and pray for them all.And I see, more clearly than ever, that the only hope for the Middle East is the Kingdom of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ.
I'm going to try to get some pictures up from our trip.....bear with me!
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 24, 2009 at 10:04 AM
I love it when God makes His presence known to me in special ways—kisses from heaven. These kisses don’t come on a regular basis, and usually when I least expect them. But they are strong assurances that He is watching over me, He is a faithful God, well able to answer my prayers, and that to him, a day is really like a thousand years, and that He never needs to be in a hurry. They are reminders that to live the Kingdom life is like finding a pearl of great price, and that any sacrifice I have made pales in comparison to the good things He wants to pour into my life.
Well, I got kissed this week! And thinking about it makes me giddy, makes me want to laugh and throw my hat in the air—whoops, I’m not wearing a hat. What happened?? Did I win the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes? No, nothing as crass as that, nothing that involves money or personal achievement or recognition—something way more important, way bigger.
I saw redemption. I saw restoration. I saw that some prayers I prayed a long, long time ago have not been forgotten. Nothing dramatic, there were no bells or major announcements. In fact, it was something that a lot of people wouldn’t even have noticed. Something that some might scoff at, say it was just a coincidence, say it was no big deal.
So why am I so deliriously happy over something that some people would think so insignificant? Because I saw the Lord!
There is a new song we’re singing in church, one our worship leader, Eric Stark wrote. It’s a happy song, a rejoicing song, called "The Living Tree." One of the verses goes like this:
Let’s live each day on God’s good earth
In the wonder of each new days birth
Let the sun shine hot upon your face
Be fully alive in God’s good grace
Be fully alive in God’s good grace.
Another verse encourages us to "come sing and dance with one hand free...." I love that, a nod to one of my favorite happy tunes, Dylan’s Tambourine Man,--"oh to dance beneath the diamond sky, with one hand waving free." That’s a description of the "good life" to me—God’s good life—living with wonder, having a dancing heart, fully alive in God’s good grace.
When we live in the joy and wonder of God’s good grace, aware of and rejoicing in the knowledge that He is present with us, an ever present help in times of trouble—when we allow the joy of the Lord to lift us and carry us through the struggles of life, we live in an expectation of good things. We refuse to live a heavy, burned out, cynical life, but instead fight the good fight of faith.
So, back to my kiss from heaven this week. I saw and acknowledged God Himself at work, and thought of the words of Jesus—"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE the Lord." I saw the Lord at work in the lives of people I have prayed for. Some Bible translations even put the beatitudes this way: HAPPY are the pure in heart, for they shall see the Lord."
And I definitely prefer HAPPY and BLESSED over the alternative! It’s a fight to stay in this frame of mind, but it is a huge part of the good fight of faith that the Bible often talks about. I’m so glad I could acknowledge what I observed as GOD AT WORK, and not a mere coincidence, not cynically doubting whether these particular people would ever get their acts together, but believing for God to be at work, believing that He is constantly at work in the lives of the people He created, constantly drawing them back to Himself through a myriad of different ways.
posted by Peri Zahnd on February 27, 2009 at 11:28 PM
The following quote is inscribed on the FDR Memorial in Washington DC.
I have seen war, I have seen war on land and on sea.
I have seen the blood running from the wounded.
I have seen the dead in the mud.
I have seen cities destroyed, I have seen children starving.
I have seen the agony of mothers and wives
I hate war.
The most violent and aggressive thing humans do is to wage war, and most wars are generally over the issue of who will rule, or possess the land. Jesus said "Blessed are the meek, the gentle, the humble, for it is THEY who will inherit the land."
posted by Peri Zahnd on March 17, 2009 at 12:13 PM
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through the confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment Day.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of demons,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.
It was late Saturday afternoon when I started baking Philip’s birthday cake.I’d had a ton of things to do, was just finishing up a brief phone conversation with my mother in law, and mentioned that the next thing on my list was baking the cake.She laughed and said, "Don’t you just love being the mom!"And I said, emphatically, "YES!"I’m glad I’ve got a son to bake a cake for—he’s seventeen and a joy.
His is always a dark chocolate buttermilk sheet cake, one I’ve made over and over again, but this time, I messed up and didn’t cook the cocoa long enough in the butter before putting all the other ingredients in. It didn’t dissolve and I couldn’t beat it hard enough.I poured it in the pan, and realized most of the cocoa was congealed in the bottom.What to do?
The only possible fix was to pour it back in the mixing bowl, heat the whole thing up and beat it again.And wonder of wonders—it seemed to work!I poured it back in the pan, opened the over door, and spilled cake batter all over the inside of the oven window.That was a first too.The batter instantly began to cook on the hot glass.I scraped off what I could, put the cake inside the oven, and closed the door.In a few minutes the smell of burnt cake filled the kitchen.Hmmm....
But in twenty minutes I pulled the unburnt cake from the oven, knowing it was just the spilled batter that was burning.The cake looked allright, just a little thinner than normal.
Outside the freakish spring snowstorm was raging.I turned the oven on to the "clean" cycle, and thanked God for technology.I left the cake on top of the stove to cool.About 9:30 I decided to make the icing—it too is a cooked butter and cocoa icing.Everything went fine until I reached for the powdered sugar, and found an almost empty bag.I dumped it in, got out the beaters, and finally admitted what I had known--it wasn’t near enough.And I didn’t want to go to the store!
I looked out the window to make sure my neighbor Vickie’s lights were on, and called her.She checked and said she had only a wee bit of powdered sugar in her bag.I jumped in my car because of the storm, drove to her driveway, and she prayed, "Lord, multiply it," as she handed it over.
It was the thinnest frosting I’d ever tried to spread on a cake, but I poured it on the middle and let it spread itself, and then I used the remainder to fill in the edges.This cake wasn’t going to win any blue ribbons for appearance, but with family, it’s the thought that counts.
Now here’s the kicker!After church, we went out to lunch—Philip’s pick—BBQ.Brian mentioned to the waiter that Philip was the birthday boy, and none of us gave it a second thought.We didn’t expect the entire staff to come out at the end of the meal singing and clapping and carrying a humongous bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, which Philip plunged into, and everyone else did their part as well.
Afterwards, we went home, visited, opened presents, and the group soon disbursed.An hour after they’d left, I remembered I’d never served the cake!Oh brother!I’m still glad I’m the mom, and that I got to make my boy a cake.And so I had a piece.Despite all the tribulation that cake went through, it was still pretty good!
posted by Peri Zahnd on April 10, 2009 at 10:06 AM
I can’t help remembering an episode of the reality TV show "I Shouldn’t Be Alive" I saw a couple of months ago.A man and a woman, beginning scuba divers, were left behind by their boat twenty miles out to sea.Swimming in the ocean and scuba diving freaks me out anyhow, not something I’m too keen on.It was a hopeless, scary situation.They prayed for rescue and just tried to hold on, but hours later, as night fell, it was apparent that nobody was going to come.They were hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and very, very afraid.They had to face a long dark night afloat in the ocean, fighting panic and exhaustion.They finally made the difficult decision to begin swimming in the direction of the land, knowing what a futile effort it was, and that their movement would create an attraction for sharks.
My stomach was in knots as I watched, and yes, the sharks did find them.They watched the dorsal fins circling about them, only imagining the size of the bodies beneath the water.They felt them brush against their feet, screaming in panicked desperation—there was no one who could save them.Miraculously, the sharks did not attack, and when, hours later, the sky begin to turn light and the sun arose, there was a brief time of increased hopefulness, which was quickly dashed after an hour of hard swimming seemed to get them no closer to the distant shore.
Hours later, however, exhausted, the shore did draw close.They were elated again, until they realized that the shore was not a gentle sand beach they could land on, but jagged cliffs that the waves were crashing into.Their bodies would be broken into pieces if they approached.Wrenching despair and disappointment and great fear.....but SUDDENLY!!!
A BOAT appeared out of nowhere.Fishermen, who saw them, and pulled up beside them, and hoisted their exhausted bodies out of the water, as they were too depleted to help themselves at all.They wrapped blankets around them and laid them in the bottom of the boat, gave them bottles of fresh water.And the poor man and woman were overcome with laughter, emotion draining from their bodies, not knowing anything else to do, they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Immediately, I thought of Psalm 126:
"When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, It was like a dream!
We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy.
And the other nations said, 'What amazing things the Lord has done for them.’
Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!What joy!"
And today, I also think of the disciples on Good Friday.They were devastated.Their ideas about the Messiah, this great revolutionary who was going to restore the fortunes of Israel, were dashed on the rocks.They had sacrificed everything, and it was all in vain.They were probably going to die with him too.There was no way out.There was no one to save.Their Messiah had failed, or so they thought.
Just a few days later, their King would rise from the dead, and they would begin to understand that they really hadn’t understood anything at all!I imagine they laughed, just like the stranded scuba divers, just like the exiled Israelites, the laughter of their world being turned upside down, or more correctly, turned rightside up.Their Saviorhad done it!Their Messiah had conquered death and the grave.And the story never gets old, as we celebrate once again the Resurrection of the Son of God and the victory of the cross.Thank you Jesus!!!!
posted by Peri Zahnd on April 13, 2009 at 7:28 AM
The day before Easter had been sunny, warm and beautiful, a perfect spring day. I had hopes for the same on Easter Sunday, and was awake to watch the sunrise. Sunrise on that sad morning 2,000 years ago was when the earth shook and everything changed forever--sunrise was the moment the Son of God rose from the dead.
The sky was brightening and at five minutes till seven an orange glow appeared on the eastern horizon. It grew and grew over the next couple of minutes, warming my heart as I watched. But then it began to shrink again, and soon disappeared behind the grey cloud that covered the entire sky. Those few minutes were the only time I saw the sun that entire day, as it remained overcast and later rained in the afternoon.
At first I was sad about the sunless day. But then I began to think how similar God’s own Son’s rising had been. Yes, the Son has risen. We have seen Him! He is here! His Kingdom is here! Who can deny that the Light has come? It’s no longer dark—as it had been dark at 3am, a few hours before. But on the other hand, it’s not what it’s going to be when someday God rolls away the clouds and we see Jesus in His fullness—the returning King come to set the world aright!
The Resurrection has begun. The New Age is upon us. Jesus began it, a few others in a cemetery in Jerusalem experienced it, but most of us are still living in hope and anticipation of the Resurrection to come. We are living in the in-between time, the time of walking by faith, the time when the Kingdom of God is more like an Impressionist painting than a photograph. The light has come, the glory of the LORD is upon us. The day IS dawning, and the Morning Star is rising in our hearts. It was a beautiful Easter Sunday, and every year Easter becomes more beautiful as the realization of what God has done grows in me.
posted by Peri Zahnd on May 6, 2009 at 7:46 PMListen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden part of it,
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.
---Frederick Buechner
posted by Peri Zahnd on November 25, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Tonight, while Brian spent yet another evening working on his new book, "Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness", I watched a documentary called "Forgiving Dr. Mengele."
Eva Kor and her sister Miriam were identical ten year old Jewish twins, and because they were twins they were yanked from their mother as they stood in line to face the crematorium in Auschwitz, Poland. Their mother and every other family member perished. They were saved so that they could be used to be part of medical experiments, cruel barbaric acts of torture devised by a Nazi maniac physician named Dr. Mengele.
Eva’s fierce passion to live saved both her life and her sister’s life. Even though they were twins, Eva said she felt like Miriam’s mother, and when Eva, very sick in the infirmary, overheard a doctor say she wouldn’t live more than another two weeks, she knew that if she herself were to die, then Miriam would also have to die, murdered so that autopsies could be performed on both girls. Eva refused to give in to death, and did recover. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians on January 27, 1945. Famous news footage shows a large group of young children, mostly twins hand in hand, walking out of their barbwire prison. Eva and Miriam are at the head of the procession.
The girls, who had been raised in Transylvania, were among the many Jewish refugees who found themselves in Palestine. They married men who had also been former prisoners, and while Miriam remained in Palestine, Eva and her husband relocated to Terre Haute, Indiana, where they raised three children, and Eva became a successful real estate agent.
Miriam, still in Palestine, had received injections by Dr. Mengele that caused severe kidney damage. (At one point, Eva would again save her life, becoming a live kidney donor.) A doctor told Eva that if he had access to Dr. Mengele’s records, he might be able to better treat Miriam. She began a crusade to try to locate those records, searching the world over. She never did find them, but her efforts caused her to become acquainted with a German physician who had been a Nazi and worked with Dr. Mengele.
Eva was learning that there was no future without forgiveness, and through a process of much soul searching, she forgave this doctor, and the two of them visited Auschwitz together. The film shows very dramatic footage of the two of them there, formalizing forgiveness and reconciliation. Other Jews who were present were not able to do the same thing. There was a lot of anger, a lot of emotion, but this little Jewish lady was a formidable preacher, a true Jewish mother, and campaigned for forgiveness. She said it is necessary to forgive so that we ourselves can be free. The film shows her engaged in heated dialogue with many different people, some Jews who could just not accept her call to forgive. They said it was too much, impossible.
There were debates about what is required in order to expect to receive this forgiveness. The different views expressed are very interesting, but you can’t help but notice that Eva has found a way to go on with life, while some of those who oppose forgiveness are bitter and unhappy. Eventually Eva decided that if she could forgive this doctor, she could also forgive Dr. Mengele. Even though he was dead and she couldn’t forgive him in person, she could choose to experience the freedom that forgiveness would bring. She forgave him.
There is nothing in this film to indicate that Eva, a Jew, has any identification with or understanding of the teachings of Christ. In fact, there are no "religious" reasons given for forgiveness, rather, it is the thing that humans must do in order to live. But whether or not it is intentional, she is following the teaching of Jesus, to love your enemies and forgive them.
She has traveled extensively, speaking to Jewish groups and student groups. With much determination and work, she singlehandedly opened in 1995 a Holocaust Museum at home in Terre Haute, Indiana, which was very well received by the community and had over 15,000 visitors in just a few years.
This movie should have ended there, but it didn't. In 2003, this museum was burned and destroyed by an arsonist who has never been caught, undoubtedly a hate crime—the words, "remember Timmy McVeigh" spray-painted on the exterior of the building. The film shows heartbreaking footage of Eva walking through the burned out shell of her dream, but ends with the surprise announcement that in 14 months the museum was reopened in another, better location.
I was very moved watching this film, particularly the poignant end. Eva Kor didn’t only speak words of forgiveness, but demonstrated them. As an old woman, she didn’t say, "it’s too much." She had enough forgiveness and faith to work to see her dead dream resurrected again, and rebuilt from ashes. How much did this woman forgive? I think seventy times seven.
