The Great Pause

Greetings from Ireland, where at midnight tonight we move to stringent Covid-19 restrictions again for the next six weeks. We're to stay home except for essential travel and exercise within 5km (3 mi) of home. We can meet up with one other person/household in an outdoor public space like a park. (Bearing in mind that Irish weather makes this rather iffy!) Churches, eat-in restaurants, non-essential retail, etc., are all closed again. But they hope to keep schools and childcare open. You can see the Irish government's 'Living with Covid' plan below.

As you live with coronavirus wherever you are, it seems we’re all either much more busy than usual – maybe juggling kids doing online school with working from home and also supporting older family members’ needs – or much less busy, with normal work and community activities slowed to a trickle. I’m in the second category. My international ministry travel is cancelled into 2021. My Irish church is on recorded Sunday worship and our weekly women’s bible study can’t meet. My local MeetUp events and other group social activities are on hold. The online part of my work does continue, mostly. I’m teaching an MA/MDiv biblical interpretation course for Fuller Theological Seminary, doing random small theological education consulting projects in various parts of the world, trying to finish up some academic writing for publication, and starting a diploma in personal/executive/leadership coaching for my professional development. But I’d really rather be immersed in the travel and classroom teaching in Africa and Asia that are what I love most about this ministry.

I’ve heard friends refer to 2020 as the Great Pause. Recently I was working on a virtual presentation on sabbath rest for the women’s retreat my EPC Mid-Atlantic Presbytery is hosting this weekend. As I read and prayed and thought about sabbath I realized how much I myself need a weekly sabbath pause right now. For me most days in the current Covid-19 reality involve figuring out what projects I need to attend to, making those happen on my computer, and trying to stay focused and motivated to keep working from home alone. Well before the end of the day I usually run out of steam mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Because I’m not getting as much done as I feel I should it seemed counter-intuitive to take a designated full day off from work. But I am reminded that God in his goodness has already woven sabbath rest into creation. For Christians this isn't a legalistic requirement but a gift I can unwrap to use now.

So this month I've tried sabbath-ing. For one day a week I completely pause, or ‘cease’ (the meaning of sabbath), from anxiously trying to make things happen. In the Old Testament Yahweh reminds the Israelites that he himself finished his work and rested on the seventh day (Ex 20:11). But he also tells them to keep the Sabbath to “remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm” (Deut 5:15). Especially in these crazy times sabbath-ing is one way I can affirm that God, not me, is the powerful one in charge taking care of us. On my sabbath day last week I slept late, made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, finished unpacking boxes and hanging pictures in my little house, got my bike out and rode it for the first time since I broke my ankle in July, and had pizza for supper.* I felt filled up and ready to press ‘play’ again after that sabbath pause.

Other longer sabbaths are also built into Old Testament sacred time. I can see how God has been using the Covid-19 Great Pause – and also the broken ankle, because maybe I’m a slow learner?! – in my life as an unexpected sabbath. In spite of my Type-A inclinations I’ve been forced to unwind. I can feel the slower rhythms of my mind and heart. I’m hopeful that like my sabbath days make the rest of the week both more relaxed and more productive, I can carry this longer sabbath into my work when things pick up again. (They will pick up, right??!)

But first I need to press ‘pause’ one more time. Instead of waiting for my Christmas visit to Virginia, Serge and I decided that given these heightened Covid-19 restrictions I’ll go sooner, at the end of this month, and stay into January. I'm not sure I can do the long solo lockdown here in Ireland again, particularly in the cold and dark this time. Especially when my ankle isn't ready yet for the rambling winter walks with Irish friends. Fortunately my online teaching and other projects go with me anywhere. Now that we’ve made this decision and I’m somewhat over feeling guilty about it, I can’t wait! I haven’t been more than 20 miles from my house since the end of January, and I haven’t seen any of my family for almost a year. Best of all, I’ll get to play with ALL my little grandchildren, as Caroline and her family are coming from Rwanda for Christmas since their summer trip was cancelled, too. I’m a very happy Nana looking forward to this different sort of sabbath festival.

So that’s where I am at the moment, trying to adjust to God’s rhythms of rest. What’s God been teaching you through the Great Pause?

 

Because 2020 wasn't crazy enough...

Hello from Dublin! Global pandemic, economic recession, social justice protests, hurricanes and fires, massive explosion in Beirut, cantankerous election in my home country… No, evidently that was not enough to make 2020 memorable. So I broke my ankle. Dang.

I don’t even have a dramatic story to tell about the accident, just lost my footing on some damp outdoor stairs coming down from the metro station and landed square on my foot. OK, three police cars and one paramedic on motorbike responding was a bit dramatic. Apparently there was nothing else happening that morning in posh Shankill village. (Fun fact: it’s where Bono lives.) Ambulance ride to the emergency room, surgery to put in metal bits, and a couple of nights in the hospital. It’s my first experience in the Irish public health system. Due to Covid-19 I couldn’t have a friend with me or any visitors, but the cheerful chatty skillful Irish medical staff took great care of me.

Now I’m home and coming to terms with an enforced slowdown. I’m in a non-weight bearing cast until at least Sept 9, then hopefully graduate to a walking boot. Ironically I moved from my one-floor apartment to a two-story cottage on the church grounds on Monday 20 July and then broke my ankle on that Thursday! Makes things a little more complicated... Fortunately I'm getting lots of good help and cheer from the Serge team here, from Irish friends in my Meetup groups, and from my pastor's family in the manse next door. Not how I'd hoped to spend August – I had to cancel the sailing lessons among other things – but not as bad as it could be.

Here's my list why if you MUST break your ankle a good time to do it is during a pandemic shutdown:

• All my international ministry travel for the rest of the year was already cancelled
• I can’t go visit my grandchildren anyway (*sigh*)
• No FOMO because no one else is doing anything interesting either
• Since everyone has time on their hands they’re happy to pop by and visit me
• All the restaurants are delivering

On a more serious note, I’m certainly seeing God’s goodness in the midst of this. He’s giving me just what I need to get through each day, ‘daily bread’ in terms of practical help, people dropping by or messaging, and rest and prayer. I’m getting to know my local Irish friends much better as they come into my home and generously take care of me. So grateful for these deepening relationships. And I'd actually already planned to take a sort of sabbatical for the month of August to rest up after a challenging year. I think the Lord may be using this to make sure I actually stay put!

Please do pray for good healing, for me to find ways to do life patiently and well in these circumstances, and for the Father to keep my heart firmly fixed on him. Thank you! Now I think it’s time for the next dose of paracetamol and another nap…

Still here...

Greetings from Dublin! Specifically from the sofa in my apartment in Dún Laoghaire, where I’m now on Week 12 of home-alone Covid-19 restrictions. So much solo time at home, so many jigsaw puzzles. The good news is that our travel limit increased from 2km (1¼ miles) to 5km (3 miles) in mid-May. And on Monday – drumroll – we expect it to be increased to 20km (12 miles). For someone who visited nine countries in the twelve months before the pandemic, the fact that I haven’t been more than 3 miles from my house since early March is a major life adjustment. But what I really miss is sitting around chatting with groups of people. We’re starting to get to do a little of that now – outdoors, in limited numbers, and with appropriate distancing, of course. When our radius increases next week I’m looking forward to a picnic with my Serge team in Dublin’s Phoenix Park where, fortunately, all our 20km circles overlap.
 
While physical constraints are in place, online constraints aren’t – for me at least. One of things I’ve been working on is video interviews for Theologians Without Borders, helping share solutions from Majority World theological educators facing challenges as they move their programs online due to Covid-19 shutdowns. Challenges like limited internet bandwidth, students who don't have internet access at home or need to share a single device among multiple family members, many who have phones but no computer – or no smart phone at all – and the sometimes high cost of internet data. You can see a couple of those videos below.
 
I’m also getting ready to do a Serge webinar next Wednesday, June 10, ‘Seeking God When Your Life Falls Apart.’ It’s essentially my testimony about how I saw God work during the deaths of my family/unexpected return from Kenya/divorce/unemployment. I'm feeling a bit anxious about how to tell this story well, but glad for the chance to point to God's goodness in hard times. I need prayer for choosing what’s best to say and how, and then having it go smoothly on the day (and that I won’t cry!). Thanks! If you’d like to join in, here’s the registration link. (It’s free.) Otherwise, it should be on the Serge website for the following week or two.

And I’m teaching my biblical interpretation course online for Fuller Theological Seminary, helping my Ethiopian supervisee finish up his MA thesis, and the usual assortment of other projects. You know, stuff. But my regular September teaching trip to South Asia has been delayed till January – God willing – and I have very little idea what the coming months will look like for my theological education work.

I would have liked to end this update here. However… Like many of you I am deeply saddened by the race-based social injustice that is so viscerally evident in my home country at the moment. I am particularly saddened that many of my Christian brothers and sisters seem more concerned about quieting the tumult or rationalizing government responses than about acknowledging and addressing the underlying issues of injustice and – let’s be real – the generations of systemic advantages that I and others have inherited as white people in America.

I affirm that our ideas about appropriate social and political solutions to such inequity can look different for Bible-believing Christians across the political spectrum. But let’s unite around Jesus' concern for the poor and marginalized and our hope to change unjust systems – in whatever ways our own politics suggest are best to do that. I believe it is possible for us to hold fast to the gospel and to speak truth against injustice and racist social systems, however unintentional the development of those systemic imbalances may have been on the part of any of us individually. My dream is that as followers of Jesus our passion to address the need can unite us even while the solutions we pursue may differ.
 
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Prov 31:8-9)

Prisoners of Hope

Eastertide greetings from Ireland! Where I, like most of you, am in stay-at-home mode due to the corona virus pandemic. Here in Ireland we're allowed out for grocery shopping and exercise within 2km (1¼ mile) of our homes. Fortunately, for me that 2km includes the seafront, which I'm taking full advantage of to walk or bike each day. A very important outlet for a super-extrovert like me in lock-down alone!

And fortunately I’m too busy to feel lonely most of the time. No international travel at the moment, of course. But because much of my work is at a distance anyway, all of that continues. I’m teaching Bible interpretation to Fuller Seminary students online, supervising my Ethiopian student’s MA thesis, reaching out locally through MeetUp connections (though no face to face MeetUps at this point!), trying to get some academic writing done, and trying to stay on top of the usual collection of other theological education projects. Plus lots of people are adding lots of other online meetings.

So, much of my day probably looks a good bit like yours does at this point:

Thank goodness for video chat! Last week the missions committee from one of my partner churches zoomed in to ask how I'm doing and about life in Ireland during the pandemic. Since they recorded our conversation for their website, I'll share the first part of it below for those of you who are interested in hearing more.

Even with all that, though, I do feel like a prisoner – of my limited space, but perhaps more profoundly of the severe and unpredictable circumstances we’re all facing. Which may be why I resonated so deeply with the passage from Zechariah 9 that formed the center of our Serge Easter celebration. It comes just a few lines after the part that predicts the messiah king’s arrival on a donkey. God says:

¹¹ As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
   I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
¹² Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
   today I declare that I will restore to you double.

At a time when the Israelites are relieved to think their exile is over, when they are going home to Jerusalem with the expectation that things will be great again, they discover that their national life is still complicated and precarious. God speaks to them in that disarray and uncertainty – looking back across centuries to ‘the blood of my covenant,’ and at the same time ahead to future restoration. He calls them ‘prisoners of hope.’ Is their ‘stronghold’ the city of Jerusalem? Or is it God himself? In fact their hope is built on the solidity of God’s own initiative in declaring them his covenant people, and on the certain promise of a future where all God’s plans come to fruition. While Jerusalem is still in tatters around them they are ‘hopeful prisoners’ and people captivated by the hope God offers them.

I keep coming back to the idea of being a ‘prisoner of hope’ during this pandemic and its unpredictable aftermath. Yes, fear and anxiety about the present and the unknown future are real. It’s tempting to think that my work or my home or anything else is my stronghold. But my only real hope is grounded in looking back to God’s choice to make me his own, and in looking forward to the surety that God is taking human history exactly where he intends it to go, that restoration – re-creation, resurrection – will happen. I want to be a ‘prisoner of hope’ during this time. Maybe you do, too?

Céad míle fáilte!

Greetings from Dún Laoghaire, Ireland! After so much travel since last August (Myanmar-India-USA-Thailand-USA-Italy) it feels wonderful to finally settle again in my own apartment in this seaside suburb of Dublin. Céad míle fáilte is Irish for “a hundred thousand welcomes.” I feel like that’s what I’ve experienced since I returned two weeks ago. Such a sweet welcome from friends and acquaintances in my local community, in my Meetup.com groups, at church and in my weekly home group, in my Serge Metro Dublin team, at the co-working space where I have a ‘hot desk’ ten days a month, my hairdresser, and even the postman who just a few moments ago insisted on carrying a big delivery box inside for me. People have amazed me by remembering and asking about my travels, the new house in Virginia, and of course my newest grandson! I tell you, these Irish – and my other expat friends sprinkled in among them – have done everything possible to help me feel at home.

It’s made me all the more eager to deepen connections and friendships, one of the key reasons for my being here in between other travels in my Theological Education Specialist role. Outside my church and Serge circles I’m probably the only committed Jesus-follower these lovely people have ever met. I have the opportunity to be a representative of Christ in post-Catholic, religion-weary Ireland (now considered the least evangelized English-speaking country in the world) and at the same time be entirely myself, however awkward and needy that can be. In the Meetup groups and at my co-working space, for example, we’re all getting to know each other and reaching out for meaning relationships. In that process I often have the chance to tell people a little about who I am and the work I do. A few people ask me more, but really it can take months and years to build up the trust to share more deeply about spiritual issues.

To be honest, I find it much easier to get on a plane and go teach my classes in various parts of the world than to wander around Dublin wondering what God wants me to do next! When I teach, there’s a classroom, a syllabus, a beginning and ending date, and a specific number of students in seats waiting to hear what I have to say. Here I find I have to be much more attentive to the Lord and try to notice and respond to those quiet prompts from the Spirit at random points in the day. And yes, I realize that’s what most of you do all the time! Blessings on you as you represent Jesus in your own unique situations.

I’ve also come back with two big challenges I’d appreciate your prayer for:

• My Irish visa is up for renewal in early June. The immigration rules have gotten stricter and all the agencies like ours are struggling to understand and comply with the new processes. I’m not sure how this will all work out. The immigration service might even require me to return to the US and reapply from there, which would likely take months.
• My financial support has gotten a bit low. Several individual partners and one significant partner church have had to reduce or stop their giving for various (understandable) reasons of their own. If you’ve been considering giving monthly or a one-time gift, or increasing your current giving, now would be the time to do that! The rest of you, please just pray. Thanks!

There’s not much I can do to control the immediate outcome of either of these issues – a terrible position for a type-A, ENTJ like me to find myself in! But it certainly deepens my awareness of my daily need for God’s grace and care. Meanwhile, while I have several relatively calm months before the big ministry projects start up again at the end of May, I have a number of things to work on, like...

• Teach my online Fuller Seminary courses
• Write one book chapter and two dictionary entries I’ve been asked to do for publication
• Supervise an MA thesis for a student in Ethiopia
• Create orientation courses for Theologians Without Borders
• Prepare for Serge's summer Encounter program for Irish and American university students
• Update my classroom and online courses

And anything else that arrives in the email inbox! Please pray for me to be able to use this time – whether at my computer or out and about with others – as a faithful servant in ways that please the Lord. “Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people” (Col 3:23).

Thanks for praying! And if you have a chance to visit me here in Ireland – céad míle fáilte!