Robi and I had lunch with a woman
yesterday who had visited our church who is a refugee from Iraq.  What
ensued was a fascinating conversation about her perspective of the war in her
land.  As is the case every time this type of interaction happens, my paradigms
are stretched (sometimes exploded).  Being a cool purple church, I
was taken aback by her unapologetic pro-war talk (in my world it is rare to
find someone of that ilk – most in our world are de facto Bush haters).
She talked of the increased freedom for the church in Iraq that has been a
by-product of the war.  According to her, before the war there were no
evangelical churches allowed in Baghdad and now there are like nineteen of
them.  In fact, she spoke of one Baptist group who are actually officially
approved by the government.  She also informed me that Muslims in Iraq are
thrilled about the possibility of an Obama presidency (maybe more on that
later)

 

I concluded the conversation with the
realization that I just don’t get it…that it is difficult to make sense of
stuff in the midst of all the swirling info that we have to digest.  The
point is, for me at least, I must move forward with humility on this Middle
Eastern thing, because I simply don’t have the internal mechanisms to completely
understand the nuances of that part of the world.  There are so many
emotions that live near the surface when Americans talk about the war and our
involvement.

 

In addition to that, conversations like
these conjure up the tension of trying to navigate how my theology interacts
with a globe that has such a dissimilar worldview. 

 

With these thoughts in mind, this
morning I was reading one of my favorite prayer books (by Brueggemann).
It was a prayer for those suffering in the world due to political corruption and
violence.  The prayer helped inch me toward a posture that is hopefully
both humble and theological.  Here is a section from that prayer/poem
entitled, “Teach Us to Weep”:

And we feebly watch for you and wait.

Teach us how to weep while we wait,

And how to hope while we weep,

And how to care while we hope…

 

With the endless power grabs of our
world…with the unending death of real people (brothers and sisters, sons and
daughters) because of decisions made by those powerful from safe location…with
the confusion of peoples who don’t get each other, I want to work hard to
maintain a Jesus position.  I don’t want to simply become unfeeling or
callous because it is happening somewhere else.  I want to remain
sensitive enough to weep over the pain and devastation of the other, to hope
for something better for them/us and to care enough to both speak and
act in tangible ways for justice.

 

Pax Christi

 

Rob