From Christmas in Russia to Lent in West Virginia: New Perspectives

It’s amazing how we can experience something so life-changing, and then fall back into our regular routines so quickly again.  Sometimes in my sermons I comment on the large number of people who stood in amazement of Jesus at one his public preaching moments… but then went home and went back to their lives and didn’t do anything different.

My recent trip to Russia was, without a doubt, life changing.  But now that I’ve been home for a few weeks I find the memories are fading into the backdrop as I rush about my normal life.  A meeting in Charleston… statistical reports… a meeting in Beckley… community meal… Sunday worship… Bible studies… District meeting… etc…  They just sort of add up and before I knew it I was right  back into that same all-consuming, draining routine I had been in before.

Then, out of the blue, I looked at the calendar and realized Ash Wednesday was only three weeks away.  I gasped and promptly grabbed my planning notebook, computer and Bible and camped out at the library.  My New Year’s resolution was to work on being better prepared this year.  (Mind you, I said “work on”… I’m not a fool, I know my limitations…).  So, it just seemed I should knuckle down for some hardcore research and planning on the Lenten season so that I’m ready now… and not trying to do it the week of Ash Wednesday.

As I read through Lenten studies and worship resources, my mind kept drifting to the inevitable question, “What will I give up this year?“  Two years ago I gave up cable television… and never took it back.  Sometimes when we give up something we realize how much of our life it took, and how little we actually we need it.  There was the long stretch when I tried to give up chocolate.  But the prevalence of Cadbury Eggs always caused me to fail.  Last year I added daily blogging to my disciplines (spiritual blogging), and that went well, except I kept falling behind.

So… what will I give up (or add) this year?

As I thought about it I couldn’t help but think of all that I had to give up in order to go to Russia.  As in introvert, I cherish my alone time in the evenings.  But to be a part of a team, that is the first thing I have to give up.  I didn’t know the itinerary before I went; but, I wasn’t really giving up anything.  I’m not really a control freak, so I could rest easily in knowing I was following a seasoned and competent leader into the mission field.

In Russia I quickly discovered all sorts of other amenities I was giving up, though.  For the bulk of the trip I would have to sleep in one of the orphan’s beds.  Giving up my private room, and my big, cozy queen-sized bed wasn’t all that eye-opening.  However, sleeping in the bed of an orphan and knowing that they don’t have a big queen-sized bed in a private room to retreat to after a week or two was eye-opening.  Every day, walking into that room, the first thing I noticed was the picture of the child’s favorite soccer player taped to the headboard, and I was constantly reminded that this was someone’s home.

The bathroom in the orphanage left a lot to be desired.  It was old and grungy and not very welcoming.  It certainly wasn’t the sort of place to which a person would retreat for a long, hot bubble bath.  The shower sprayer didn’t work, so we had to sit in the tub, filling a plastic cup with the weird-smelling water, and pouring it over our heads in an effort to wash our hair.  And the toilet… well… it didn’t even have a seat.  And for whatever reason (be it plumbing or low water flow or something else), we couldn’t flush the toilet paper.  So, it had to be placed into a little trash can next to the commode, which was a huge blow to my American sensitivities about hygiene.

And still, it never failed.  As I left the bathroom with a wrinkled nose and a longing for my working shower and a commode that could not only flush toilet paper that would also have a seat attached, I would see that soccer player taped to the end of that bed… and I knew that a child lived there.  Not just a child.  Children lived there.  Children lived there and slept there and laughed and talked and dreamed and cried and wished there.  This was a home for someone.

And so, day after day, as I fretted about the things I was giving up, I would see that soccer player and remember that for all I thought I was sacrificing, I was living where a child lived… maybe I didn’t have a toilet seat, but I had a bed.  And, in all honesty, it was comfortable.  We sometimes complained about how hot the interior of every building in Siberia was.  But we had heat.  Maybe the bathroom didn’t meet my standards, but I felt clean after each bath and I had a place to relieve myself when nature came calling.  And the food–the food was amazing.  I discovered I love Russian food.

Sometimes we see the act of “giving up” one of our pleasures as an act of self-sacrifice during Lent.  But I have to wonder if we’re really giving up anything at all.  Back when I gave up television, I thought I was giving up something that helped my unwind after a busy day…  But I discovered I had far more time to unwind in more productive ways.  More than that, I wasn’t rushing around, trying to finish things I had left undone the day before because I had been distracted by the television.

And for all I thought I was giving up in Russia:  my bed, my personal space, toilet seats, heating systems that can be controlled, familiar food, and the ability to communicate without assistance… I was actually gaining much more.  There are new friends.  There are stories to share for years.  There are new foods.  Who would know that beets make an awesome soup???  The Russians, that’s who!  And the realization that even when all my things are taken away, I have my basic needs more than met, and I am blessed.

Giving up doesn’t mean we are punishing ourselves.  Giving up means we are making room in our lives for something more important.

There was once a time in my life when I wouldn’t have taken that trip to Russia because I wouldn’t be comfortable with everything I’d have to give up in order to go.  I know now that I was a fool back then.  I had no clue what life was about or how to receive, with any sort of gratitude, the blessings and lessons God is giving us each day.

So… as I prepare for Lent in the wake of my return from Christmas in Russia, I do so knowing that what ever I give up isn’t out of any sort of foolish expectation that I’m setting myself right with God.  I’m making room in my life, so that God can enter in and set me straight. I’m giving up the things that keep me from seeing and hearing God so that I can be with God.  When I think of that way, I realize I’m not really giving up much of anything, but gaining everything!

An Appalachian In Red Square

Had you told that twelve-year-old version of me that I would one day be standing, jaw hanging agape, in the middle of Red Square, I would have laughed you out of town.  Me?  In Red Square?

But it happened.

We clambered out of the bus and followed Yelena through a pedestrian underpass… and as I emerged with St. Basil’s Cathedral standing before me, I felt a lump in my throat.  I had seen this cathedral in photographs all my life, and had always been struck by the beautiful, brightly colored Orthodox domes rising into the sky… but to see it with my own eyes was nothing short of amazing.

For a few moments we stood near the cathedral, my eyes darting from one sight to another.  To my left was the Kremlin Wall… and the Kremlin clock tower… and that strange, cubic pyramid-looking thing… why, that was Lenin’s grave.  And that long, beautiful building to my right outlined tastefully in white holiday lights was nothing less than the GUM.  I’m not usually the type of person to care about shopping malls, but the notion of a mall that dates backs to the 19th century was mind-boggling to me.

As I stood there, trying to take in the full effect of being in a place that had always seemed so far away, I couldn’t help but recall how this had been a place of infamy for Americans (and the Western World) for a very long time.  But standing in the shadow of St. Basil’s on those beautiful red paving stones, I was struck by only the beauty and the history of the place.

That night, as I lay in bed, reflecting on the day’s events, I found myself once again pondering the idea of what makes a person an enemy… and what justifies hatred.

Many of the people we were with were my parents’ age–and I’m sure, that like my parents, they had grown up being taught to hate the other.  For my parents, the hatred was directed at the “Ruskies”.  And for the good people we were spending time with in Tomsk and Moscow, the hatred was directed at the “Yankees.”  For that matter, until my early teens, we were still watching movies like “Red Dawn“, and still worrying that the Russians were going to steal our freedom.  So what changed?

Sure.. the wall came down.  Yes, the Soviet Union collapsed.  But weren’t the people still the same?  It was not as if the wall was dismantled and suddenly everyone living on the other side of it had been magically transformed…

Or maybe there was a transformation.

I am reminded of an insightful discussion we had in New Testament class in seminary.  The debate centered around the story of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:25-30.  Jesus had come to bring salvation to the Israelites, and so when this Greek woman approaches him seeking the salvation of her daughter, Jesus brushes here aside with what felt like a rather crass comment, “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  But this woman, who had basically just been called a dog, defends her right to ask for mercy.  ”Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” she said.  Jesus found favor in her argument and offered her daughter healing.

Now, there are many ways to look at this story.  Was Jesus testing the woman?  Was Jesus using the woman as a teaching moment for the disciples?  Was Jesus setting the example for universal salvation?  Or was Jesus’ own mission expanding at that moment to include the Gentiles?  Each interpretation holds an important revelation…

But what if Jesus’ discussion with that woman really had generated a transformation in his ministry?  What does that say for us?

Certainly not a single one of the Russians I met on my journey were an enemy to be condemned… but the adolescent version of me would have thought they were.  And then the world began to change… and a transformation began to happen in my own soul.  I began to question who were my enemies and why.  I began to see a people in a whole new light.  And my heart began to grow.

Now, a thirty-four year old me can honestly say, “Yes, these people are as worthy of salvation as I am.  They are my brothers.  They are my sisters.  And I love them.”

Maybe Jesus’ mission and ministry transformed as he debated with the Syrophoenician woman so that we, too, could learn to transform our own narrow versions of mission and ministry.  Just as Jesus opened his heart to offer salvation to one of “the others”, we too, are encouraged to open our heart and to see “the others” as our family.

I don’t know how what sort of transformation happened in the lives and hearts of the crowd in Red Square, but I know that something deep in my heart and soul  certainly transformed as this Appalachian preacher stood in the middle of Red Square:  I learned to love a little more deeply.

God, Billy Joel, and the Berlin Wall: It Was Meant To Be

I’ve never left the country before.  I had never even made it across the border to Canada or Mexico.  So, naturally, the question was posed, “Why Russia?”

I guess it does seem a strange destination for a person’s first venture outside of her national boundaries.  Maybe a trip down to Cancun, or up to Nova Scotia would have made more sense.  But I don’t often do things for the sake of making sense.  I do things for the sake of following a path traced out by God’s own finger.  And it just so happens to be that a trip to Russia has been on my mind and on my heart for a very long time.

I blame Billy Joel for placing the first inkling of  a curiosity about that strange and mysterious land hiding behind the Iron Curtain in my head.  It was 1989, I was twelve years old and in the seventh grade, and Mr. Joel released his eleventh studio album and became a permanent fixture in my life.  Hidden on the B side of the Storm Front album, was a gem of a song called Leningrad.

As I listened to the story of Billy’s encounter with a circus clown named Viktor (whom he had met after a performing a concert in the Soviet Union in 1987), I began to realize that maybe the world wasn’t as black and white as it seemed.  Just as Billy and Viktor would discover how much they had in common despite being raised as enemies, I was beginning to see the world from a new perspective.

Within a year of that 1989 musical revelation, the Berlin Wall fell.  Two Germanys became one.  The images of crowds of young men and women climbing over the wall seemed a far contrast from those old videos I had watched in history class of desperate men and women fleeing through barbed wire and being gunned down by armed guards.  This was a new world.  This was a promising world.  Gunfire had given way to concerts.  Barbed wire had given way to hammers and chisels that chipped away at the things that divide and opened up brand new possibilities for peace and unity.

And by the time I was finishing up my junior high school career, the Soviet Union had collapsed.  Who were we to be afraid of, now?  If the Soviet Union was no more, who was going to point their nuclear weapons at the Kanawha Valley?  Who were going to be the villains in our movies?

And so it just happened to be that I began high school in a new era.  I would get my first kiss, take my first driving lesson, and hold my first job in a world that was completely different from anything my parents or grandparents had known.  Their world had been locked in a stalemate of an armaments race no one could possibly win.  Their world had been divided by a wall of concrete and an imaginary curtain of iron that was cold and callous from either side.  But my world was wide open.

And then, a dozen years ago, an early twenty-something version of me stopped by a bulletin board in my church and thumbed through the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission flyers on display.  Each one seemed intriguing.  Each one seemed like a terrific experience.  And each one seemed out of my grasp… but one jumped out at me.  One just sort of rose up from its thumbtacked position and slapped me in the face and said, “This one is for you!”  It was announcing a Christmas-time trip to Russia… and although I would drop the flyer back into its place and walk away, God had taken hold of my heart.

What Billy Joel had started, God was going to finish.

It took a while… but I finally couldn’t ignore God’s call to get up and go any longer.  Between God, Billy Joel, and the Berlin Wall, it was just meant to be:  I went to Russia.

Putting Pen to Paper (Sort Of)

It’s been a while since I’ve done any blogging… and so I figured this was as good a time as any to take it up again.  And while I’m at it, I might as well move my personal blog over to WordPress, where everything else I manage is housed (sorry, Blogspot… it’s not you, it’s me).

Of course, when I launched this new blog, my intention was to begin by keeping a daily diary of my recent mission trip to Siberia and Russia.  Go figure, there wasn’t any internet access in Siberia!  So, that grande idea fell through, and I am once again left to my own devices.  [Insert maniacal laugh here].  So, what that means is that now I get to do things in a style more fitting of my very non-linear train of thoughts.  Rather than a chronological accounting of our trip, I get to reflect in my own random, chaotic way!

So… here we go!