the last reflection...

This is my final sabbatical reflection and one that I shared during the sermon time at McClure United Church on Sunday.

I have so much to tell you... it's really hard to know where to begin. 

But I'll begin saying a great big thank you. 

The  gift of sabbatical time has been such an incredible blessing to me. 

Thank you for making that possible. 

Thank you for your prayers...

thank you for your emails of love and support...

I can't tell you how much it meant to me to know that during my time away people here were thinking of me and holding me in loving prayers. 

And, of course, I am also extremely grateful to Ron and Debra for carrying an extra load in my absence and to all those who filled in and covered for me...  Zac and Shannon for caring for the youth.. and Meghan and the Faith Development Committee for organizing Rainbow Village.

I also want to say that I missed you... so very very much I missed you.  And I am grateful to be back. 

I really want to share with you today some of what I learned during my time away. I want to tell you about how the spirit of God has been working in my life…

I think an important reflection to share… especially during this season of Pentecost.

Many of you, I know, have already read some of the personal reflections I offered on my blog over the past 5 months..  but if you haven’t… and are interested... I’ve made copies of my blog posts and you can find them at the back of the church.

So I guess a good place to begin is at the beginning.  My sabbatical began on December 25... Christmas Eve being my last official day of work. 

Most of January was spent slumming around in my pj's, drinking tea, memorizing spanish words and preparing for my trip, packing, unpacking and repacking my backpack... and taking care of all of the little details I needed to take care of. 

I’d been planning this trip to Nicaragua for over a year.  At first it felt as though the day would never arrive... and then suddenly I found myself on an airplane bound first for Houston Texas and then on to Nicaragua... to the capital city of Managua and finally to the city that would become my home for 2 months... the city of Esteli. 

Esteli is the third largest city in Nicaragua... about 120,000 people live there. 

Nicaragua itself has a very interesting and somewhat tragic history... part of which includes a devasting earthquake that happened in 1972 wiping out 90% of Managua (a city of 400,000 people at the time). 

Another huge part of this country's history involves the Sandanista revolution which also took place in the late 70s. 

It was a revolution that effectively overthrew the existing dictatorship, claiming power and forming the first democratically elected government. 

Prior to these two events, Nicaragua was the wealthiest and most developed country in central america...

     but they have never been able to recover from the mass destruction caused by both the earthquake and the revolution. 

Esteli itself was heavily air-bombed in the late 70s... destroying most of the city and many of its people.

So currently Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America.  Statistics say that about 47% of the people living in Nicaragua live on less than $1 per day.

And this is where my story begins...

Everything about my first few days in Esteli felt completely surreal.  My home was located in Los Coquitos... one of the poorer areas of the city.  My hosts... Lucilla and Nievez, although not wealthy in terms of money were rich with hospitality and warmth and even though they spoke no English and I spoke very little Spanish, they managed to make me feel very comfortable and safe. 

Now… just to paint you a little picture of what I experienced...

I want you to imagine streets.. narrow streets less than half the size of what we have here... filled with people. walking, biking, riding horses... filled with animals... cows, chickens, roosters, dogs, horses all sharing the road with taxis, buses and other various motor vehicles. 

And then imagine the houses... many of which were wood shacks with dirt floors and tin roofs... others, like the one i stayed in, were concrete slabs with concrete floors and tin roofs.  

Much of the concrete brightly painted with every imaginable color... pinks, greens, orange, purple and sometimes all on the same building. 

Also imagine the beautiful forested mountains surrounding Esteli. 

And imagine the ginormous mountains... 2 of them.. that I had to climb every day to and from my spanish school.  

And finally.. imagine the people. 

Beautiful people... friendly, joyful, proud... and very very poor. 

Because I lived and spent most of my time in the Los Coquitos... I got to know many of these people on a very personal level. 

I’d sit every evening in front of my house pretending to study but actually watching the comings and goings of the neighbourhood and many people would stop by to say hello. 

Some of them I spoke to only once or twice... others became dear friends that I saw and spent time with every day. 

And this is where my story really begins... with the people of Esteli because these people invited me into their homes and lives... shared with me their joys and struggles...

and because of them I have been forever changed. 

I'm not sure why... but during my time in Nicaragua, my heart was opened up in a way it has never been before. 

Now I've always been pretty much a heart person... but here.. I don't know... something different happened.  

And I think what happened was that removed from the business and chaos, that can often be my life here in Saskatoon I was able to be so much more connected and present, to myself and to the people around me. 

In the absence of daily responsibilities and the stress that can sometimes accompany them, an opening was created for God to enter in...

I was, in a sense, born again.. spiritually awakened...

as Jesus said to Nicodemus... I was born from above.  

When I was in Nicaragua I became my best, most compassionate, loving, generous self. 

I entered fully into the lives of the people I met there. 

I loved them...

I shared their joys and I shared their struggles and in the midst of that I felt a growing sense of discomfort bubbling up inside of me...

discomfort with my own privilege...

a privilege that has not been earned or granted based on merit but has been inherited because of pure luck... because I happen to have been born to middle class parents, with white skin, in Canada.  

I also felt a growing discomfort  with our culture...

a culture that allows people to go without... without food, medical care, adequate housing, water, education. 

I felt ashamed of our world...

a world where there is so much more than enough to go around..

where so many of us have more than enough of everything, while others in the world don't have nearly enough of anything. 

I began to think about all of the waste I've participated in... wasted money, wasted food, wasted time...

None of it felt very good and yet, at the same time, it stirred up in me a fierce compassion and desire to help in whatever way I could.

While I was in Nicaragua I did what I could to help those I could.  

I shared meals, money and other resources but more importantly... for me and for them... I shared myself... my time.. my friendship... I shared hugs and stories. 

I shared my love.  

I shared everything I could but yet, when the time came, I left there feeling, as though everything I had to share would never be enough.  I left there with a tremendous amount of guilt that I was returning to my privileged life...

it was hard not to feel as though I was turning my back on them. 

I left Esteli with a heart that had tripled in size... full of love and compassion while, at the same time...  teetering on despair for the state of humanity. 

But.. being the eternal optimist... the one who tends to see the glass always as half full... this isn't the end of my story... despair does not have the final word.

I went to Nicargua to learn Spanish. 

It's about the only thing I didn't learn. 

Instead I learned alot about me and about God... I learned that if you're going to create space for God's spirit to enter in you better be good and ready to go through the labor pains of rebirth.  And.. it wasn't really even that i created the space for God... it's more like God saw that I was vulnerable and open and seized the opportunity to move right on in.  

And once the spirit of God took over my Nicaraguan agenda.. it was game over. 

God opened my heart to love and through that love I experienced deep compassion...

and through that compassion I experienced the grief of leaving my friends behind...

sorrow as I realized that once I left their lives would return to normal... their struggles would continue, as always,...  this is when the despair began to set in...

but as I said... this story… it doesn’t end in despair...

This story ends in a renewed and passionate commitment to living out the love and compassion that is such a central part of who I am... of who, I believe, we all are.

In the 2 months since I've returned from Nicaragua I've had lots of time to reflect... to pray...  to live into the rebirth that I experienced there. 

I've suffered the growing pains of reintegration...  of returning to what to me feels like vast wealth..  of returning to a culture of consumerism and intense competition. 

I've come to terms with my privilege and rather than feeling guilty about it... am finding the determination I need to use my privilege for good.. rather than to gain more privilege. 

I still feel ashamed that I live in a world of people who don't know how... or are too afraid... to share abundantly.  

A world that has so much wealth... so many resources... but where people are forced to live in terrible poverty. 

In my reflecting over the past two months I’ve spent much time reading various books that I thought might help me in my search for hope to balance the despair.  Once of those books is by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and it's called “Made for Goodness”.  I read one paragraph in the very beginning part of the book that helped me to reorient myself... that began to reinstore my hope and give all of my heartfelt learnings a new direction... and this is what it says...

“Our experience, our reading of scripture, and the people who have been part of our lives -- however briefly -- have taught us some important truths that we will share with you in this book.  First, we will see that we are all designed for goodness, and when we recognize that truth it makes all the difference in the world.  Second, we are perfectly loved with a love that requires nothing of us, so we can stop "being good" and live into the goodness that is our essence.  And third, God holds out an invitation to us -- an invitation to turn away from the anxious striving that has turned stress into a status symbol.  It is an invitation to wholeness that leads to flourishing for all of us."

These words hold out so much hope... and they reminded me of one of my most basic beliefs about humanity... one that sort of got lost there for a little while. 

My basic belief about humanity.. about all of us is this...  we are good. 

We were created in God's image...

and as the creation story tells us in Genesis... after God created man and woman and looked upon them and all of creation.. God say.. “it is very good”.  

No matter what we have done... or not done... that goodness is always a part of us. 

It is a part of me... and it is a part of each one of you.  

God's goodness is the essence of every single human being. 

God's goodness is the essence of all of creation.   Now, if this is true... and I really really believe it is... then there is always hope.  

The evil that exists in our world.. the evils of violence, of racism, of neglect... the evils that create poverty... all of these go against that fundamental goodness. 

And because I believe in the truth of God's kingdom... a kingdom where goodness reigns... I know without any doubt at all that just like my despair... these things will not have the final word.  Evil is not the end of our story.

I believe that the goodness of God's kingdom is not something of the far off future but it is here… it is now. 

For every evil deed that is being committed right now there are many more good deeds taking place...

people all across the world are working for change. 

People are responding every minute to the call of goodness that’s within them.  

There are thousands of organizations working to make this world a better place. 

There are millions of people involved in these organizations or working on their own to share their goodness with the world.

To give in to despair is to deny the goodness. 

I can't deny the goodness... I've experienced it – both in receiving the goodness offered by others and by being compelled to share the goodness that is in me with those around me. 

The rebirth I experienced in Nicargua was an awakening of that goodness... all I wanted to do was to help... to reach out... to just love.

Returning to Canada hasn’t changed that.  

And while I feel compelled to share my experience of Nicaragua and the struggles of the people I met there.. I am also compelled to be a voice that reminds people of their goodness..

to convince others to let their goodness out... let.. it.. out…let it be awakened in you...

or let the goodness that is already shining through be strengthened.

I think that what’s wrong with our world...

what drives people to live in ways that are selfish, arrogant, impatient, and even violent....

is that we have forgotten that we are good. 

We have forgotten that God created us out of the deep and spacious goodness of love.... into love... to be love.  

Our love is God's only hope for the world. 

God needs us to love.  

The world needs us to love. 

And we need to be  that love... not to just think it... not to just quietly share it with those we’re closest to... but to be that love in big, bold and daring ways. 

Imagine what our world would look like if everyone lived to love.... what a wonderful world that would be.  

And so... I've returned to you... to my ministry here with this new fire burning inside of me. 

I’m so ready to share God's love. 

And what does sharing God’s love look like? 

For me, sharing God's love looks like compassion, empathy, caring... it looks like sharing laughter and sharing tears... it looks like sharing what I have so that others might have what they need. It also looks like anger at injustice... it looks standing with those who need a friend, and challenging systems that keep people on the margins. 

It looks like challenging a culture that works so hard to convince us that we are not good enough. 

God's love is not all sunshine and roses... and living God's love is certainly not an easy task... but it is absolutely essential... not only to the health and wholeness of our world... but also to our own sense of well being.

And the first step to living that love is remembering who we are. 

We are goodness. 

No matter how angry, or bitter, or distraught you might feel... no matter what life has handed to you... no matter how you have responded to what life has handed you... you are good.  

You were created in the image of God and nothing you can do... or nothing that has been done to you... can ever ever change that. 

The best thing you can do for yourself.. the best thing you can do for the world.. is to accept this simple truth. 

You are goodness.

I'm telling you to do whatever you need to do to see your goodness. 

If there’re things you have done that you feel guilty about... that are getting in the way of your ability to see yourself as God sees you... then do what you have to do to let it go....  talk to someone.. talk to God. 

If life has left you angry, or bitter, or full of despair... talk about it... pray about it.  

It doesn't matter how you do it, I just urge you to do something.  

The greatest sin we can commit, I think, is not living up to our full potential and as long as we refuse to accept the goodness that’s within us… and also within others… we are refusing to be who God calls us to be.

As I said earlier... I think that one of the reasons I found myself spiritually awakened in Nicaragua was because I slowed down long enough to be more present to myself... to those around me and, also to God. 

I think that this is absolutely key to everything I'm talking about here. 

In order for our hearts to be opened.. for us to notice the great need in the world and feel adequately equipped to respond with love, compassion and challenge when it’s needed..

in order for us to be able to recognize God's presence in our lives and the goodness that that presence brings... we must slow down. 

We must make time for silence... for reflection.  We must create an openness for God's spirit to enter in. 

God is here... right here... waiting... hoping... for the opportunity to create new life in all of us.   God loves us that much!  Thanks be to God!