Mission Trip 2007: Turkey

Yesterday I offically decided to take the Young Adults of our church to Turkey. We will be going to support and work with one of the young adult missionaries from our church in her work there. Every year we go to a diferent place and look for different experiences. The first year we went to San Francicso to work with the poor. Last year we went to hike the Himalyan mountains in India to support one of our missionaries, and pray for that country. This year will be similar to that, in that alot of the work will not be tangible expressions of mission work--building stuff etc., but be relational/spiritual in its accomplishments.

We will spend time helping add to the continued building of Christian relations in that country between Christianity and Islam. Sharing the life-giving message of Christ with those we build relationships with and looking for every opportunity to live out the gospel as a way of life not only as a message. We will spend time doing ministry in coffee-shop style Christian gatherings, sharing, leading in worship, doing campus ministry on University Campuses, helping a company with the creation of Biblical materials for those who cannot read Scripture because of threat. These are just the opening ideas of what we will be doing in Turkey, and I will continue to update these things as they unfold. I am looking forward to it and will look forward to sharing the experience with all of you!

The Importance of the People

"The most effective answer to this leadership vacuum would be a new era of political activism by ordinary citizens. The biggest, most far-reaching changes of the past century — the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement — were not primarily the result of elective politics, but rather the hard work of committed citizen-activists fed up with the status quo. It’s time for thoughtful citizens to turn off their TVs and step into the public arena. Protest. Attend meetings. Circulate petitions. Run for office. I suspect the public right now is way ahead of the politicians when it comes to ideas about creating a more peaceful, more equitable, more intelligent society."

- Bob Herbert, New York Times columnist.

Conservative or Liberal: Pepsi or Coke. What's the Dif?

“People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people.”
—“V”, V for Vendetta

"He has shown strength with his arm;He has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,And lifted up the lowly;He has filled the hungry with good things,And sent the rich away empty."
—Mary, the mother of Jesus, Luke 2

Today the US congress turned down a bill that would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to above $7.00. According to calculations done by those within the US, that means that those who make minimum wage, who work 40 hours a week, bring home just under $8,000 a year. Well below the poverty line. Congress turned down the bill, while just months ago they gave themselves a raise. In fact, they have given themselves a raise eight times in the last ten years, while the minimum wage has stayed the same for those ten years. The reason for this rejected bill, like so many others, has to do with corporate lobbying. It is sad, but it is becoming more and more apparent that multi-national corporations actually run America (and Canada by extension). Large, multi-national corporatations do not want the wages to be raised—because they would be forced to pay higher wages to their workforce—these corporate structures "buy politicians" on both sides of the aisle of Congress, and influence them through their so-called “support”. Not even partisanship can change this. Democrats, who took the House and Congress this past November, are the ones who posed the bill and could not even get it passed—though they had a majority vote (over 50%)—they needed sixty percent to pass the bill though not fifty.

This is injustice. And I would venture to say, as Christian, that God is not happy with such policies. And this is not about being against one political party or another: both parties (as if two can represent the opinions of the people, or even three like in Canada!) are corrupted by the influences of the corporate agenda, and will thus continue to keep their people poor and working three jobs, while saying things like the President said a few months ago: to keep the economy going, he said “I would encourage you to shop more.” Shop more! Are you crazy? We are the most materialistic, consumeristic generation that has ever walked the face of planet earth. We face all kinds of economic injustices in the world because of our over-indulgent bodies and minds and the solution from the highest office in the world—the most influential pulpit in history is “Buy more stuff”—buy more cheap and useless consumer goods! How are people supposed to do so, with no money in their pockets—which is not even to mention the debt that our generation is accumulating due to high prices of real estate, etc.

I am convinced that "democracy"—you know that thing the terrorist supposedly hate us for, or was that "freedom"—has been flipped upside down at every level. The majority of the American people (85% polled) say that they are in support of raising the minimum wage. In a “democracy” who, theoretically, holds the power? The people. We are beginning to realize one sad thing about that concept. It is a façade--a lie—to make the people think they hold power. They really hold very little but a vote once every two years, and every four years that actually makes a difference. And that vote is between two parties that are two sides of the same coin. The rhetoric between Conservative and Liberal, Republican and Democrat—is really just a front, just that "rhetoric" that does not trasnlate into reality—there is little difference on the ground between the two parties. The difference is solely symbolmythical if you will--perpetually perpetrated on the watching public, by TV debates and broadcasts that show two aisles. The reality however is far different and scarier: the policies are not worlds apart, but the same. As someone has said recently: “It’s the difference between Pepsi and Coke.” Such is “democracy” I guess.

John 1.1-14: The Life-Light

This is part of the poem that makes up John 1.1-14, re-written by one of the professors of Regent College--a well-known writer, pastor and theologian--Eugene Peterson.

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.

Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out.

The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people, but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding— all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.

Though no one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse, This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.

My Favorite Three Films of the Year on the Eve of Oscar

By the time anyone reads this the Oscar nominations will have been read. So, I wanted to reflect on three of my favorite films without influence from the Academy. These are not predictions--I am sure you will not see any of these nominated for best picture!--but my own favorite films of the year. This year I have not seen as many films as I usually do--that's what happens when you have a child in August I guess, but with limited viewing these are my top three:

3. An Inconvenient Truth-- Such an important movie. It is about the effects that Global Warming is having on the world. It is a kind of documentary on the issue and the fight that Al Gore has had in congress making them realize the importance of the changing environment due to humankinds negative influence. Something to think about in relation to our God-given mandate to care for creation not to destroy it!

2. Blood Diamond-- Again, an important movie. About the diamond trade in Sierra Leone. But it gives a picture of Africa that is important for people to see including the civil wars, genocides, corrupt governments supported by Western interests. The questions that arise from the film have to do with the Western responsibility: How do we as individuals stop supporting economic stuctures that cause/ continue to uphold the oppression of human beings. This was truly a life changing film that has me praying and thinking alot about Darfur and the present genocide that is happening there--a repeat of what we saw in Rawanda in 1994, where over 800,000 people were slaughtered systematically. Where is the outcry for Darfur today?

1. Apocalypto--I know I know, what an odd choice for number one. Well I have to say this choice is purely based on entertainment/ artistic value--though the message of the film is thought-provoking too. This film is nothing less then amazing. It's beauty, and cinematography is astounding, it's images breath-taking and it's plot has one at the end of ones seat. It takes the genre of chase to a whole new level and just commits to telling the story of this culture in a parabolic way, with lessons for our own culture. From the opening quotation by historian Will Durant about the fall of the Roman Empire: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within,” to the shocking exploration of this cultures religious beliefs including human sacrifice, it is truly an original tale in Hollywood today. And that's where I take the critics to task. The film critics did not like this movie--not least because of Mel Gibson's anti-semitic comments--which I condemn as well--but with all the garbage Hollywood produces (the same story over and over again), you take on a risky/ original project and they hate it! My friend Dan and I didn't hate it. Our jaws were on the ground the whole time.

Risky and original is important these days in Film, even as I look at the list of films being made for 2007: Saw III, These Hills have Eyes II, Hostel II--Blah Blah Blah--one thing Hollywood loves to do: exploit an economic success to the ground, even if it has zero artistric integrity--and that is what they are doing with this renewed "teenage-horror" genre. I would watch something original any day over that.

Other films that I know I would have like if I could have gone to them, and which might get nominations this year include: Babel, The Queen, United 93, Children of Men, Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima.

Sunday Night Reflections: What Brought Me to Tears this Week

I cried this week. They tell me that is what happens when one begins to get a prophets heart--you weep. Partly because you begin to feel the sadness that you speak and live against. Partly because of your fear that no one will listen to your message. Jeremiah (the Old Testament prophet) was called the weeping prophet. This week I understood why.

Sienna and I were on a walk around Tssawwassen--the town I live in--she in her comfortable little baby carrier, strapped to the front of me--me on a mission to get coffee at Tim Horton's, iPod in my ears listening to the Massey Lecture series by Stephen Lewis, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations called A Race Against Time--about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the continent of Africa. He was telling a story about a group of teenagers he was speaking to in Africa and one of the fourteen year old girls said that the boys were all pressuring her to have sex with them and the girls were laughing at her because she refused--they called her silly. She asked Stephen Lewis pointedly in a crowded auditorium: "Do you think it's stupid to not want to die?"At that point the entire crowd stood to their feet in applause in support of the girls question. It was at this precise moment, I remember it vividly, that I began to physically cry and mourn.

I was, in Jeremiah's language, "Lamenting" the realities of this world, specifically the dark world of this girl and everything she represented to me: the evils of humankind, the folly of human politics/ oppressive economic ideologies and practices (those of the IMF, the Bank of America, etc.), the continued spread of this disease because of carelessnes and promiscuity--Yes which those who continue to make those decision are to blame for--but that carelessnes is often due to ignorance and lack of education--which is something we could help change, but also because the disease continues to go unchecked, though the Western world clearly has the means of treating it--Magic Johnson anyone!--which is great, but we should live in a world where the rich are not the only ones who get to live healthily with AIDS. The poor need help as well until we can cure it. Jesus was a prophet who wept and he loved and helped lepers and other diseased outcasts of his society--he would do the same today with those living with this terrible disease.

May we think and pray on Africa this coming month--I know we all feel helpless...but there are things we can do. We just need to dare to dream. Like the prophets did.

"Belief" By John Mayer

Is there anyone who
Ever remembers changing there mind from the paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls
Ever breaking rank at all
For something someone yelled real loud one time?

Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be
Everyone believes
And they're not going easily

Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword
Like punching under water
You never can hit who you're trying for

Some need the exhibition
And some have to know they tried
It's the chemical weapon
For the war that's raging on inside

Everyone believes
From emptiness to everything
Everyone believes
And no ones going quietly

We're never gonna win the world
We're never gonna stop the war
We're never gonna beat this
If belief is what we're fighting for

What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand
Belief can..Belief can
What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand
Belief can..Belief can.

Swim Day

Last Friday was Sienna and I's first swim lesson. Though the formal lesson was cancelled we had a great time swimming around the pool!

Sienna: Beginngs (Part I)

The beginning of the beautiful life of Sienna Paisley Clark

Sienna: A Life Dedicated to God

Erin and I continue to live and breathe our daughter Sienna, and have both concluded that she is our common best friend. She is a person that we dedicate to God and ask that He raises her in his ways. That He draws her to faith in Jesus and into a Spirit-filled life. That she would think of others as greater than herself and live and move as the Spirit leads her. That she would work hard at understand and living out the gospel (the "good news") of Jesus in a world filled with bad news. That she would be defined by the grace and love of Christ in a world filled with un-grace and hate toward people for a litany of "reasons": race, creed, religion, etc. We pray that we would be good models of God's new creation to our daughter for all the days that He graciously gives us to spend with her. Amen.