Thursday, January 24, 2008

Combatting Global Poverty

I wrote my US senator yesterday. I couldn't help it after hearing Kathleen O'Toole of Bread for the World talk about the Global Poverty Act that is moving through Congress. The Act requires the President of the United States to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the US foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

You might say that the Global Poverty Act requires the United States to put its money where its mouth is. In the year 2000, some 189 heads of state gathered at the United Nations and put together the Millennium Declaration that said that the #1 threat to the world is poverty. The United States was among the signers of that Declaration. Some 8 goals were identified that have now become known as the Millennium Development Goals. These goals include:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

The first seven focus on developing countries where these problems exist. But the 8th goal calls upon developed nations to do their part by improving the kinds and amount of aid that we offer to developing countries and by cancelling the huge debts that such countries owe. This is where the Global Poverty Act comes in. It compels the United States to work with developing nations to achieve the first goal.

It's not too difficult to grasp how the lives of people in developing countries can be transformed by more and better development assistance. We see it all the time in the global efforts of field personnel here at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and through the work of other entities like Bread for the World. One of my co-workers likes to say, "It's all about water!" He's right--a single well in Zambia provides for cleaning drinking water, thus helping to eliminate disease. It also enables women (who generally have to draw water far from home) to spend their time receiving an education instead of making a half-day trip to get water.

But much more remains to be done. Developing nations struggle to provide universal primary education because so much money goes toward debt payment. The forgiveness of the debt frees up funding so that free primary school education can be offered. Passage of the Global Poverty Act will make the elimination of poverty a consitutive element of US policy, thus legislating that we find solutions to the problem of global poverty.

I don't think its too much to ask of any of us. Pick up a pen and write your senator at US Senate, Washington, DC 20510. Say something like this (and I'm borrowing this example from Bread for the World):

Dear Senator:

I ask you to do whatever you can to provide more and better aid for the world's poorest countries. All nations agree--extreme poverty can be cut dramatically by 2015. Please do all in your power to increase poverty-focused development assistance by at least $5 billion in fiscal year 2009. And please work to ensure that Congress passes the Global Poverty Act.

Sincerely,

Your name

It's the least we can do. It means that we're backing up our desire to end poverty with action that can accomplish it. And we're demanding that our nation put its money to work so that it fulfills the promises it made when it put pen to paper and signed the Millennium Declaration.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Reflections on a King

This weekend's celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. is bringing back a memory for me that is at least ten years old. Sometime in the mid 1990s I found myself in Memphis, Tennessee. A church had asked me there to speak on some now long-forgotten topic. In an effort to be good hosts, church members inquired about what I'd like to do while I was in town.

"I'd love to go to the Lorraine Motel," I responded.

An absolute, stunned silence filled the church office. I suppose they expected me to say something like "Eat some ribs" or "Go to Graceland."

"Why in thunderation would you want to go there?" someone finally asked.

I remember being a bit shaken at the realization that I must have violated some sort of social norm with my request, though I did have the presence of mind to stand my ground and say that I really admired Dr. King for his courage and that I understood that the motel was now a memorial to his life and to the struggle for Civil Rights for African-Americans.

I was assured that such a visit was out of the question.

Then, later in the afternoon, one of the ministers pulled me aside.

"I'll be glad to take you to the motel," he said. "But please don't tell anyone that we went."

The next morning he picked me up and we made our way over. I don't remember much about the exhibits. But I do remember the fact that they had been set up in such a way that visitors ended up in the room that Dr. King occupied on the very last day of his life. It was made to look exactly as it must have looked just moments after he was assassinated in 1968.

I looked out across the parking lot to where his assassin pulled the trigger.

As I recall, the song, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" was piped into the room. I listened to the powerful words--"Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand. I am tired. I am weak. I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home."

My eyes filled with tears--at what had been gained and what had been lost. And at the fact that thirty years after his death, a church would wonder why I wanted to celebrate the life of such a man. As I looked at my minister friend beside me, I noticed that he was also crying.

"That was really powerful," he said as we walked back to the car.

I nodded my head--and I let the words of the song lift up over me into the clouds--"Through the storm, through the night, lead us on to the light."

Take our hands, precious Lord. Lead us home.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Planeguage

I learned a new word the other day thanks to Delta Airlines. The word is "planeguage" (pronouced like "language"). And customers are introduced to it via various cute little cartoons that are woven through the movies, news and video that play over the entertainment system. The cartoons mock the lack of legroom, trauma of sitting in the middle seat, and other challenges that often cause airline customers to leap out of the emergency exit doors at 30,000 feet.

For example, one cartoon depicts a man in the middle seat trapped between two screaming children. Obviously, he's had enough and he screams loudly and puts his elbows squarely on the armrests in a move that absolutely traumatizes the children. The words "middle" and "man" drop from the top of the TV screen and then come together at the bottom---"middleman."

I'm sure that it is hilarious to watch--when you are far removed from the horrific realities of air travel. But I must confess that the humor is lost upon you when you are actually sitting in the middle seat or don't have enough leg room and have paid about $2000 to endure the indignities.

This was exactly my experience about 24 hours ago when I found myself on an international flight on Delta Airlines. In an effort to get from Temuco, Chile to Tucson, Arizona, I flew Lan Chile from Temuco to Santiago, Delta from Santiago to Atlanta, and American from Atlanta to DFW and from DFW to Tucson.

I must say that this was my worst experience ever on an airplane--and I have logged about 1.5 million miles in the air (since my first 10,000 mile journey at the age of 9). For some reason, over the last few months, Delta elected to squeeze another row of seats onto this particular airplane, a move which resulted in my absolute inability to put my feet under the seat in front of me.

This wouldn't have been so bad if the gentleman next to me hadn't been of such size that his prominent right cheek precluded any possibility that said cheek could fit under the armrest between us. And then Delta had the gall to put a cartoon called "planeguage" on the TV screens to mock me as I endured the indignities of the experience. "Ha, ha, ha," Delta seemed to be saying. "Isn't air travel a pain? Look at all the words we can invent to make fun of you as you sit back, relax and enjoy the flight!"

I walked back to the rear of the plane on at least two dozen occasions--and, at one point, a Delta flight attendant decided to say something about my frequent trips.

"Having a problem with leg room?" he asked.

"Oh, no," I responded. "There's no leg room to have problems with. I think there used to be something called 'legroom' but it seems to have disappeared."

"Well," he said (and if I'm lying, I'm dying--he actually said what I am about to say)--"You know, we all get larger as we get older and that makes us think the legroom is disappearing."

I guess that is what we call "planeguage." Planeguage is nothing more or less than plain language when it comes to air travel.

I've got some "planeguage" for Delta.

How about "United" or "American?"

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Table Talk in the Shadow of Seven Volcanoes

The conversation came at the end of a long day of celebration and in the shadow of seven volcanoes. Our hosts were Ricardo and Mary, a forestry engineer and a university professor respectively, who live in a beautiful Eden about 45 minutes outside of Temuco, Chile. Surrounding their home are seven volcanoes, one of which erupted in a blaze of fire and smoke on New Year's Day. We enjoyed walking around among the gorgeous trees and flowers and, of course, we shared a meal together.

The bulk of the day had been spent in El Cajon in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Baptist Union of Chile, complete with a baptism of a dozen people or so along the banks of the very river where those first Chilean Baptists had gathered in 1908. The crowd was so thick that I couldn't even see the baptizands, so I held my camera up high over the crowd and clicked away in various directions hoping to get something approaching a decent record of the event. One guy thought it was a pretty good idea and asked me to do the same thing with his camera. We shared in the Lord's Supper, dined once again on charred asado or grilled beef, and even enjoyed some traditional dancing by a group from Concepcion.

Now at the end of the day, we were sitting around Ricardo and Mary's table reflecting together about life and faith. Ricardo and Mary shared with us their work among the Mapuche people, the original inhabitants of the Auracania region of Chile and parts of Argentina. When Ricardo and Mary moved to their new home in this part of rural Chile, Mapuche from the local church helped them to dig a well. Now Ricardo and Mary are working among the people, assisting with dental care and in many other significant ways. The Mapuche are subsistence farmers who barely eke out a living and who are experiencing the realities of extreme poverty.

Our conversation turned to the challenges of working together with a group of people to sustain themselves and their families without creating dependency upon what outsiders might bring to the table. We talked about assets-based approaches to meeting human need where the focus is on the assets of a group and not upon the challenges that the group faces. What do we have? How can we use what we have to improve our lives?

It's the same challenge that churches in the United States face as we attempt to assist with human need in the shadows of our steeples. Clothes closets and food pantries are good band-aid approaches to the challenges of poverty. But the real opportunity to transform lives occurs not with band-aids but in working together with people in the midst of poverty to identify the assets that they bring to the table, the strengths that come from within themselves that enable them to move toward a better and more sustainable life.

It struck me on the ride home across the beautiful landscape of southern Chile that the ministry that Ricardo and Mary are carrying on among the Mapuche is not a one-way street. They are in this thing together with the Mapuche as Christian brothers and sisters. I'd almost forgotten (at least for a moment) in my concern for the extreme poverty in which the Mapuche find themselves, that it was the Mapuche, after all, who dropped what they were doing and came over to help Ricardo and Mary dig a well so that they could have water in their new home.

Friday, January 11, 2008

A Chilean Street Demonstration

I found myself in the middle of a Chilean street demonstration today in the city of Temuco just a few hundred kilometers south of Santiago. It certainly wasn't your traditional demonstration, though this one did stretch for a couple of Temucan city blocks and consisted of about a thousand people waving balloons and carrying flags (I'll post a picture later). The demonstrators were Chilean Baptists who had gathered in Temuco to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Union of Baptists in Chile, established in 1908 by 5 churches in the Temuco region.

As far as I could tell, the demonstration was arranged by university and perhaps high school students within the Convention's churches who wanted to showcase the Baptist presence in Chile and to bring the love of Christ to folks along the way who seemed stunned by such a large group parading in the middle of the day along the 3 kilometer route from the Baptist College to the central Plaza Anibal Pinto. The students wore clown faces and encouraged us to move along quickly in an effort to keep down the incessant horn-blowing of buses, trucks and taxis. In front were the flags of Chile and of the Christian faith. And lagging behind were my colleague Bernie Moraga and myself. Bernie kept encouraging me to blend into the crowd and then laughing uproariously at the prospect that my prominent 6' 4" frame and pink skin could ever accomplish the feat.

It was a great moment for the Baptists of Chile who have lived in the shadow of the Catholic church throughout the first century of their existence and who made the most of this opportunity to celebrate all that they have achieved since that first meeting in 1908. I felt an intense solidarity with them as a global Baptist myself. I couldn't help but think of those early Baptists in England who emerged out of the English Separatist movement and who experienced relative obscurity themselves in light of the power of the established church. I wondered if John Smyth and Thomas Helwys (among the earliest Baptists) ever imagined that Baptists in a country on the other side of the world that didn't even exist in the days of Smyth and Helwsy would some 400 years later parade a thousand strong down the central streets of a city like Temuco and celebrate their Baptist identity and heritage.

We arrived at the Plaza Anibal Pinto and I watched as the Chilean and Christian flags paraded in front of the La Auracania Monument (depicting the clash between the Mapuche people and the Spanish forces that, ultimately, the Mapuche lost). Music filled the square. We celebrated. Some of the students danced. And I just experienced it all.

I'm in Temuco at the invitation of Dra. Raquel Contreras, President of the Baptist Union of Chile. I've been to a traditional Chilean asado or barbeque of beef and lamb which lasted a full afternoon. I've listened to a magnificent performance by Baptist choirs and orchestra of Handel's Messiah. I've had good conversation about connections between the church in Chile and in the US. I've brought greetings in very poor Spanish to my brothers and sisters in Chile. And I've demonstrated, not about politics, but about faith and about the love of Christ that transcends the barriers that we're often all too quick to raise. I'm glad to report that religious freedom is alive and well in Chile.

Vaya con dios, la Union Bautista de Chile--and please know that your brothers and sisters in the rest of the world celebrate together with you! You give hope to all of us to fight the good fight of faith with confidence and courage.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Paul Gauguin and Life's Questions

We went to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts yesterday where I happened upon a painting that Paul Gauguin described as his masterpiece. You've probably seen it somewhere before--it's called "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" One source reports that Gauguin felt so good about it that he considered commiting suicide when it was finished, fully convinced that he could never come close to it again. That's what I call a masterpiece!

He painted it in Tahiti in the late 1890s, having gone there in 1891 to escape to a more "primitive" culture from the complexities of France. The painting, according to Gauguin, ought to be read from right to left. The three groupings across the canvas represent three stages of life: the three women with a child represent life's beginnings, the middle grouping represents young adulthood, and the third group depicts aging and death. The goddess at the top left of the painting directs our attention toward the next life.

I was intrigued by the title. How did Gauguin seize upon these three questions for the title of his painting? After some digging, I have at least one possible answer. It seems that, in his teenage years, Gauguin attended the Petit Seminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin near Orleans in France. He took a class on liturgy there, taught by the Bishop of Orleans, one Bishop Dupanloup, who constructed a catechism for the class around three questions--"Where Does Humanity Come From? Where is It Going? How Does Humanity Proceed?"

Gauguin never cared much for the religion of his native France--but it is most interesting that his disdain for the Church didn't translate into disdain for the basic questions that give ultimate meaning to human existence. Far off in Tahiti, he found human beings struggling with the same questions--and his painting provides a connection between the questions that had been raised for him in France by an obviously good teacher and viewers like me who gaze now at the painting and find in it the common human search for answers.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Happy New Year?

I've just about had it with airports and hotels at the moment. My family and I traveled up to Boston yesterday morning--after spending the previous night at an Atlanta airport hotel. As we checked in, I specifically asked the hotel clerk about the airport shuttle.

"What times does the shuttle run to the airport?" I asked.

"Whenever you want it to run," she replied. "Just call us about ten minutes before you are ready to go over."

I was impressed. Wow! A hotel shuttle that ran when you wanted it to run--what a novel concept.

I slept soundly, though briefly, as my son and I stayed up late to watch the University of Georgia Bulldogs absolutely ravish and destroy the University of Hawai'i.

I climbed out of bed when the wake-up call came at 4:30 a.m. I took a nice, slow shower. I woke my wife and children up at the proper time.

Then I called the front desk to tell them that I expected a shuttle to the airport in 10 minutes.

"The shuttle only runs on the hour," said the woman at the front desk. Of course, the woman I had chatted with the previous night was sleeping soundly at some location absolutely unknown to me.

I protested that I had been assured the previous night that the shuttle ran whenever I wanted it to run.

"I don't know why anyone here would tell you that," said the clerk.

"Well," I said. "I don't either--but I'd suggest you go crank your car and start warming it up so you can take me over to the airport."

She informed me that she didn't take people to the airport.

We rushed around like crazy people and packed in 10 minutes--putting the entire family in a great mood for the flight to Boston.

The shuttle driver threatened to leave us when we were a bit slower getting there.

As we exited the shuttle at the airport, he said, "Happy New Year, sir!"

I didn't return the greeting.