intersections

2011 Year in Review

I can't believe another year has passed into history. It's been an incredibly busy twelve months, full of milestones and new ventures, for me and my family. This brief update will give you a little idea in words and images, what we've been up to this year.

Family

Urban life is a little insane. There is always too much happening in too little time and space, but we can never complain of boredom. Elysabeth made an enormously courageous decision to start a new career this year. She is currently enrolled in the Vidal Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica. She began the one year program in  September and is looking forward to putting her considerable artistic ability to work styling hair. In February she also had a solo exhibit of her new paintings in Silver Lake. You can see her paintings here, and even purchase one!

Zoe started 6th grade this year in a new school - Renaissance Arts Academy - where in addition to her regular studies she is studying modern dance. On June 4th I had the amazing privilege of baptizing Zoe!

Sophie started 3rd grade this year at Franklin Elementary where she's been since Kindergarden and excelling in all her subjects! After school she continues to learn the piano.

Ministry

My ministry at the Hollywood Adventist Church is as rewarding as ever. This year we had the remarkable experience of partnering with a dozen or more Muslims from the nearby Islamic Center of Southern California and having some inspiring conversations about our respective faiths. On the 10^th Anniversary of September 11 we had the privilege of hosting Imam Jihad Turk, from the Islamic Center, to speak about peacemaking in our world.

Exploring Melbourne

I spent yesterday looking around Melbourne with my friend, Nathan Brown. The most unexpected thing I discovered is the abundance of really amazing street art. Apparently the city of Melbourne embraces the creativity of its people. Listen up, Los Angeles! Below are a few of the piece I ran across...and a couple of other curiosities.

 

Amahoro!

In a few days I'll be headed to Melbourne, Australia for the Victoria Conference Camp Meeting (which is actually 2+ hours drive north of Melbourne, I'm told). I'm looking forward to making new friends there, as well as reconnecting with old friends. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter for updates about that (provided I have some internet access).

From Melbourne I'm traveling to East and Central Africa. First to Mombasa, Kenya for the Amahoro Conference and then to Bujumbura, Burundi with a few friends. I cannot begin to describe how excited and grateful I am.

(click to enlarge map)

Stay tuned for updates about my trip.

Needed: Prophetic Voices for a Just Economy

Last week I spent three days in Washington, D.C. with clergy from the PICO National Network. PICO is a congregation-based community organization that is working for justice in our communities. The clergy work toether, locally and nationally, to give a prophetic tone to our voice as we speak and act for justice. Yesterday I posted some reflections at The Huffington Post about my time spent with these faith leaders as we think about where we're at as a nation. You can read a portion below or click here to read the whole thing at the Huffington Post.

"How do you respond when you see this chart?"

That was the question Scott Reed, Executive Director of the PICO National Network, asked a room of about 25 pastors and rabbis who had gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first meeting of the new National Clergy Leadership Council.

"How does it feel to be faith leaders during such a time?" he asked.

A few people had seen this already during a presentation by Josh Bivens, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute and author of the recent book, Failure by Design: The Story Behind America's Broken Economy, but it was brand new to me. It took me, and others, a few minutes to digest what we were seeing here. One by one we commented about what we thought caused this. We tried to explain it, justify it, and rationalize it. Then Scott said something that stopped me cold in my tracks. <keep reading>

 

Also, if you haven't checked The Hillhurst Review in a while (or ever) I have posted several reviews there in the past couple of months. Stay tuned for new reviews in the coming days including a new book by Miroslav Volf called Allah and a helpful book for faith leaders in multicultural settings, Churches, Cultures and Leadership, by Mark Lau Branson and Juan Martinez.

Benediction for the Day

I wrote this Benediction for today's worship service in which the Gospel was on John 5:1-9a.
------------

Lord, we give you thanks today
For the fullness of your risen presence,
and for making yourself known to your people again
through the breaking of the bread
and the sharing of the cup.

You come to us when we least expect it,
        when hope has expired.
In the ravages of our sickness, you visit us.

As today we are unable to imagine your healing,
        or hope for it,
        reach for us.

Interrupt our whining.
Cut short rambling explanations

Arise, you say. And we arise.

Let reverberations of life emanate from this table
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Sprit,
One God, forever and ever.
Amen.

 

If there is no God

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother's keeper
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying there is no God.

~Czeslaw Milosz

The Hillhurst Review launches

This week my friend, Syd Shook, and I launched a new website called The Hillhurst Review. From our About page:

The Hillhurst Review is a space where peoples of faith can be challenged and inspired. A multimedia, journalistic combination of reviews, interviews, opinion and creative pieces from across the globe provides a platform that breeds new insights and new friendships. We seek to give readers the opportunity to encounter extraordinary thought and stories and the people whose life and faith incite them.

We begin with an interview with an extraordinary doctor, sometime known simply as The Gaza Doctor. Syd and I sat down with Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish just over a week ago and spoke to him about his new book, I Shall Not Hate. I first met Dr. Abuelaish in July 2010 at a small gathering of interfaith leaders who are concerned about the way people of faith can affect peace in the Middle East, and specifically Israeli-Palestine. I was struck by his humility and grace. Later that evening I listened as he briefly told the heart breaking story of losing three of his daughters and a neice in the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008. That night I pre-ordered his book which was published in the US until January 4, 2011.

During our interview last week we learned that he has again been recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. I highly recommend his book to you, no matter what your position on the conflict in Israel and Palestine has been, or whether it is a completely new topic for you.

Our complete interivew with Dr. Abuelaish is available at The Hillhurst Review. I also wrote a piece for The Huffington Post about this interview and his book. You can find that piece here. An excerpt can be found here, below the fold.

[HuffPost] Killing the DREAM Act: Still No Room in the Inn

Today we witnessed another skirmish in the real "War on Christmas". As Christians all over the world celebrate the final weekend of Advent and prepare for Christmas in just one week, the U.S. Senate once more dashed the hopes of almost 2 million children and young adults, many of whom have lived in the United States all their lives. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act failed to pass a procedural vote today in the Senate. First introduced in Aug. 2001, the DREAM Act would allow the children of undocumented immigrants a path to legal residency by either going to college or enlisting in the military.

 As the media prattles on about the so-called "War on Christmas" -- an ideological battle over terminology, at best -- people's lives hang in the balance. Actions speak louder than words. One way Christians can protect the place of Christmas in our society -- indeed, the credibility of Christianity more generally -- is by acting in harmony with its core principles: grace, welcome and hospitality.

But today there was no hospitality, no grace.

 

Read the rest on Huffington Post, here.

Also, learn more about the DREAM Act from the non-partisan Immigration Policy Center.

Baloney's not the answer

From time to time I write book reviews for Molossus - an online broadside of world literature. I recently reviewed the new book, Tunnel People, by Teun Voeten (PM Press).

Teun Voeten is not the first to document the lives of the people living in the tunnel systems of New York City. His newly updated account, Tunnel People, is unique, however, because of Voeten’s commitment not only to his craft, but also to the people. Articles and books have been written about the tunnel people and Mark Singer’s award winning documentary, Dark Days, introduced the world to this underground society in what Voeten himself calls a “shockingly honest portrayal.” But Voeten went a step further, living in the Amtrak tunnel on Manhattan’s west side for five months over two years, digging beneath the surface of the tunnel people’s lives as well as their complex and diverse social environment. “To add something new to the earlier studies,” Voeten writes in the introduction to his book, “I decided to take the anthropological approach, using its favorite research method of participant observation” (3).

Read the rest here.

When What is True is Not Pure

This is the video of the talk I gave at this year's Adventist Forum Conference. My title was "When What is True is Not Pure.

Al Tirah! Fear Not!

We are drowning in a culture of fear in America. The message coming daily from the cable news networks is, "Be afriad. Be very afraid!" Yes this is contrary to the a dominant biblical theme: "Fear not!" As my friend Sharon Brous, Rabbi of the IKAR community here in Los Angeles, says in this new video, the Torah is littered with command, "Al tirah," on God's lips. The opposite of fear, in scripture, is love. Instead of closing our hands in fear we are told to open our hands in generosity and compassion (See Deut. 15:7-10).

Jesus echos this long standing tradition when he says,"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Luke 12:32). John, the beloved disciples of Jesus, toward the end of his life, penned these powerful words,

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

In this video, Sharon has reminded us that Jews - and Christians following in the same tradition - have a different vision and calling than others. Our lives should be a demonstration to the world that there is a better way - the way of generosity and love.

Perfect love casts out fear!

Fear not!

Al tirah!

Born in failure

Cross-posted from the Hollywood Adventist Church website.

Today is Friday, October 22, 2010.

That's 166 years since the same date in 1844 when groups of Millerites expected Jesus to return to earth on that day to set up his eternal kingdom. In the aftermath of that disappointment a core of those devastated believers clung to their hope of the soon return of Jesus and end of sin and suffering. From the pain and turmoil of those early days the Seventh-day Adventist Church was born. I've always found it interesting that our church's founders are among those "crazy" people who actually predicted the day of Jesus' return. In spite of that, I grew up with a kind of reverence for those early pioneers. William Miller's Bible study method was even praised and taught to me, in spite of the fact that it got him into so much trouble. Despite the ignominy of the event, Adventists have clung to this founding narrative.

At the same time we have tried to minimize the embarrassment. We have, in so many words, said, "We weren't really wrong, exactly. We were just mistaken." At least that's how I remember hearing the story told as a child and a student going through Adventist schools. What is it about religious people that prevents them from admitting to being wrong? Why have we made being right a spiritual value? Throughout history, doing right is a virtue, but not necessarily being right. But somehow, since the Enlightenment, we have elevated being right over doing right. In fact, doing right can often mean admitting that we haven't been right.

So there is a kind of ironic humor, it seems to me, in the fact that the church that believes itself to be the remnant church of Bible prophecy was born out of the embarrassment of being completely wrong in their interpretation of the Bible. I know, someone will still say, "They weren't really wrong, they were just mistaken." Sure. I see that you're trying very hard to not be wrong. But think about it. Utter failure & weakness. Isn't this the perfect place to start a new movement of God's Spirit?!

But such a movement's success will depend on learning to stay there. What if being God's remnant somehow required us to start with this crazy episode of being radically, profoundly wrong? What if the core lessons we needed as God started a new movement of His Spirit at the tail end of the Second Great Awakening, were the lessons of humility and agility. Perhaps God values theological agility over theological stability. Perhaps God values humility over perfection. Perhaps perfection is found in humility. Perhaps God values doing right over being right.

It seems to me that at this time in our church's history we could use to relearn these lessons of humility and agility. As the edges of our denomination seem to be hardening, let create a faithful Adventist witness which remembers our founding narratives and learns afresh that the greatest moments of hope arise from the deepest disappointments. If we listen we can  hear the footsteps of God's coming amid the noise of our apparent failure.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!