Month: April 2020

Where do you belong? 

When the world comes tumbling down around you, who will be there for you no matter what? ‘Blood is thicker than water,’ they say. 

During these days of pandemic restrictions, I have enjoyed connecting online with extended family members in both Australia and the United Kingdom. It’s fun to see a computer screen full of faces which look SO similar to one another.

I’m proud to belong to this network of people who all trace their ancestry back to one particular couple who lived over a century ago – the father of the gentleman pictured below.

Drolma

Unlike my story, Drolma’s forbears did not cross from one side of the world to the other in a rickety old ship that was decommissioned soon afterwards. As long back as anyone could remember, her ancestors had lived in the mountains in a district that is still written on Drolma’s ID card as her hometown today. 

After she moved to the city for college, she met some Christians. Lonely, frustrated and confused, she was glad to go along to parties they organised. In the spring break, she helped out with some of their charity work. Before long, she was a regular attender at their meetings. The day came when she decided to join their ranks and was baptised. 

That was all very good and well until her family found out. “If you reject our religion, you reject your community,” her monk cousin explained. Indeed, the word for Buddhist in her language, ནང་པ (nang ba) literally means ‘home’ (ནང). To reject the one implies rejecting the other. 

With tears, her mother begged her to renounce her city-girl beliefs. “I don’t mind you wearing modern clothes. I haven’t even criticised your haircut. But this?  Go to the temple and burn some candles. Give them some money and say some prayers. Amend your foolish modern ways. You are Tibetan. You are Buddhist.” 

Hard times

That was three years ago. Drolma was a devout Christian for a season. But after she and her friends graduated from college, they all went different ways and drifted apart. Drolma found a teaching position in a town closer to her family. Her position in the community there, once so clear with its responsibilities and privileges, was now uncertain. Nevertheless, she went home for the New Year celebrations, though as usual, she abstained from participating in anything too religious. 

Then the virus hit her country. Her town remained unscathed, credited by some to the gifts given to the monastery, to the juniper burnt on fires, to the prayers chanted fervently and to the circuits some devout ones made one painful prostration after another around local holy places. The school in which Drolma taught did not reopen, and she stayed on in the mountains with her family. 

The disapproval and pressure from her family and community was getting to her. It had been a long time since she had opened her Bible. One day, when her mother suggested that Drolma go with her to the temple, Drolma agreed. That evening, her father handed her a string of prayer beads. “Do your bit for our family, daughter. We need all the prayers we can muster during these difficult days.” 

A forum

Drolma’s story is typical of many who come to faith in Jesus when they’re away from their families. Though they’re sincere when they believe, pressure from their home communities makes it hard for them to continue on in faith after they return. 

I was privileged to recently be part of a forum discussion on the topic of ‘resilience amongst Tibetan Buddhist background followers of Jesus’. The group was made up of wise, experienced workers, one of whom came from a Tibetan Buddhist background himself. 

The first question was this: ‘What are the greatest sources of pressure on new believers?’ ‘Family,’ everyone immediately responded. Whether overt or covert, the pressure new Christians feel from their home community is immense.

Fear was another source of pressure that was mentioned  – both fear of not knowing how to navigate life cut off from family, as well as fear of reprisal from local spirits which they no longer try to appease. Pressure from local authorities was the third difficulty mentioned. But everyone was clear – pressure from family is huge.

‘What has been helpful in helping new believers remain strong?’ the group was asked. The response was unanimous:  ‘Community’.  Build community. Maintain community.  Use social media and modern communication. Travel and visit regularly. Share stories of what God is doing amongst the community through recordings, booklets, or word of mouth. Whatever it takes, community is vital. 

Culture

I am a fairly individualistic Westerner. I admire people who strike out on their own, take some risks and successfully create a new life for themselves. My father and uncle both did that in the middle of last century, which is why half of our extended family is now based in Australia. 

People like Drolma, however, come from collectivist cultures. Her very identity is wrapped up in who she is within the context of her community.  After consultation with her community, if she were to physically leave her homeland and make a new life for herself elsewhere, as many have done, that would be okay. But to decide as an individual … let alone to decide to reject her community’s Buddhist faith … now that is  unthinkable. That decision is not hers to make. 

Bible times

The people whose lives are recorded in the Bible are perhaps more like Drolma than they are like me. Community was a big deal to them. What an individual did reflected on and affected the whole of the community. Just think about Achan with his pillage in the Old Testament, or Ananias and Sapphira whose selfish choices threatened the purity of the early church in the New Testament. 

The Bible teaches a lot about the importance of community and of striving for unity amongst the people of God. Jesus prayed for the community of believers in the garden on the night that he was betrayed. Love for one another was to be a hallmark of his followers. It was a theme that would be repeated over and over … one body with many parts; one building with many stones etc.

And yet community is very hard to build in parts of the world where there are very few believers, let alone amongst Christians who share a common language, culture and live in the same general area. Add to this the pressure that comes from a tight community in which Buddhism is part of the very fabric of society – a community that is reluctant to lose any of its own. 

Pray

Those who participated in the forum discussion I mentioned earlier felt that community was the key to building resilience amongst Tibetan believers. But how do scattered believers become a community?

The third and final topic discussed in the forum – what could be done to help – was addressed primarily by the Tibetan Buddhist background believers in the group. “Pray for us. Facilitate gatherings and trainings. But don’t come in and lead us. Don’t tell us what to do as outsiders. We need to be insiders building a community of God’s people here. Please get people from your communities to pray for us too. And pray especially for our leaders.” 

Hence this week’s blog post. I can never belong over there. I belong with my pale-skinned English-speaking family members. I am a welcome guest to the places in which Tibetan brothers and sisters live, but I don’t belong there. 

Will you pray for Tibetan believers generally to remain firm in their faith despite the pressures of family and community? Will you especially pray for leaders of Tibetan Christian communities? May they have wisdom and provision for all the needs of their communities – material, emotional, educational  and more. May Christian communities be well established there. 

When hard times come … when viruses hit … when economies come crashing down … who will be there for Tibetan followers of Jesus? 

May they have a place to belong.

I’m LOVING procrastinating from study by reading a ‘relevant novel’. Tents Against the Sky is written by an academic who, in his scholarly missives, doesn’t address the question which I am asking in my own studies. The author, Robert B. Ekvall, has also written a number of novels and our library had one of them … there just may be clues in there that will help me in my own musings about cross-cultural missions.  (Or maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to enjoy a good story.)

The following paragraph from the book I am reading describes a child monk waiting for his mother to come to the monastery in which he lives.  It is set in the 1940s.

“Dorje Renchen wriggled his impatient, rebel toes. All his excitement could find expression and release only in their frantic motion. They were hidden as he sat cross-legged in the proper attitude, demure as any one of the little bronze Buddhas that filled the image cupboard at the far end of the room. Presently all ten toes played an irregular tattoo on his bare thighs as he watched, through the latticed window, a line of moving figures cross the distant pass…. Among them … he felt sure, was his mother.” 

Robert B. Ekvall, ‘Tents Against the Sky’, p.10  (Good News Publisher – second edition – 1978)

That scene has lodged itself in my imagination. As a somewhat maternal spinster, my heart aches for the little boy who had been separated from his mother. As a woman who has travelled in the part of the world in which the story is set, I enjoy ‘visiting’ there again in my mind. As an amateur writer, I appreciate Ekvall’s use of imagery and the way he ‘shows, not tells’.

The author of the novel

Who wrote this story? How did he set the scene so beautifully? Surely he had lived there at some point. If the truth be told, I am probably following another rabbit trail of enquiry that keeps me from getting on with the job at hand.

Whatever the reason, today I investigated who this Robert B. Ekvall actually was. As I read a little of his story, I found a man that I could identify with, despite the decades and distance between us. An American missionary, a secular translator, writer and academic, he died an old man while I was still choosing a career. (Born before the turn of the last century, he died in 1983, when I was in my mid-teens.)

A true biography

As I child, I LOVED missionary biographies – and still do. Those stories no doubt impacted my own choices in life. Ekvall, however, left no missionary biography … not one that was published, anyhow. But he did write stories – stories that could have been true – stories similar to some of the little tales I have told too, but much longer and beautifully written.

Not only did he leave no missionary biography, but he formally finished ‘missionary work’ halfway through his working career. That’s what his supporters may have thought anyhow.

In fact, perhaps his most strategic work in a rapidly changing world came later. As an older man, he was intensely involved with supporting the Tibetan diaspora who were scattered around the world. As an academic, an ethnographer, he also worked with them to record information about their lives while it was still their lived reality.

His own life story would have made for a rather depressing book, actually. The poor man suffered tragedy after tragedy. As a child in China (where he was born to American parents), his father suddenly died, after which he was uprooted and taken to his passport country of the USA. Years later, back in China, his dearly loved wife also died. He and his only son were then imprisoned for a time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. That boy went on to become a soldier and was killed in the Korean war. (The book I’m reading is dedicated “To the memory of Dave, my son, who was with me – all interest and help – when this was being written.”) He remarried, had two more children, then that wife died while the children were still young. An old man, he married a third time but the two went their separate ways.

Shaped but not defined by tragedy

Those tragedies may have shaped him but they didn’t define him. What did define him was his insatiable desire to listen to and learn about the peoples of Tibet. The publisher of the edition of the book I’m reading (the second publisher – it was republished 24 years after its first printing) describes Ekvall in this way:

“Robert B. Ekvall (was) a pioneer student of foreign cultures, a poet and a novelist with an unseen spirit ready to listen to both the inner voice of God and the cultural voices of men and women, especially the Tibetan people whom he knew so well.”

Victor L. Oliver, 1978, foreword to ‘Tents Against the Sky’

Plans thwarted again and again

I wonder if the author somewhat identified with the little boy who is described in the quote at the start of this blog post … sitting still, but wriggling impatient ‘rebel toes’. Events outside of Ekvall’s control brought life as he knew it to a screeching halt, and not just once but several times. In each instance, he was unable to control things let alone ‘fix’ anything. Survival was his only option.

Later in life, he yearned to return to China but couldn’t because of policies of the government of the time. Although he had an official invitation from the Tibetan community to visit India, where the Tibetan diaspora had established their headquarters, he was refused an Indian visa. (That was because he had served as an intelligence officer – a translator – for the US military during the war.) He was, however, allowed to spend time in Switzerland which had welcomed thousands of Tibetan refugees in the early 1960s.

Rebel Toes

The main character in the book I am reading, the boy monk with the impatient rebel toes, goes on to live an interesting life – one with many twists and turns. (Yes, I am bad … I have already skimmed the book just to see what happens.) That boy’s story ends with a horse, a tent, a wife and a Saviour.

Life is rarely straightforward. Some of us know what it feels like in this day and age to sit and wait as our world spins out of control. (Okay – that’s a gross oversimplification – the ubiquitous internet makes working from home well and truly possible.) Others are straining through various intense pressures – overwhelming work, illness, fear, financial stress and more during these strange times. Life may never be the same again.

I take encouragement from the story of Robert B. Ekvall, who lived through times as intense as any of us and more – the Sino-Japanese war, imprisonment, a world war (serving in intelligence on the front lines in Burma, no less), and personal tragedy several times over. His life’s direction changed dramatically each time as a direct result of what was going on around him. But just as some parts of life finished up forever, so other opportunities presented themselves.

There is no nice neat moral to wrap up this tale of an author I admire. All I can say in conclusion is this — the times in which we currently live will pass, life may never be the same again, but as long as we draw breath, there is still purpose and meaning in life.

Even if it isn’t what WE had planned.

(And now I really should get back to the many and varied tasks from which I am procrastinating by reading this excellent novel.)

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10 NIV

It’s a classic Easter verse, and for good reason. It is sometimes printed over a background of a stunning sunrise scene.

I think wistfully of years past, of sunrise services followed by hot cross buns and coffee by a lake in Melbourne or overlooking the plains of Western Sydney at a lookout in Glenbrook. The discomfort of leaving my cosy bed has been long forgotten. But there was none of that this year … not with the pandemic restrictions … not unless we were to keep moving and count it as ‘morning exercise’. And that would pretty much rule out hot cross buns and coffee with friends afterwards.

Yet the incredible truth of Easter has not changed.

Less appealing, but more intensifying because of the contrast, is the following verse in the chapter of Isaiah from which the ‘greeting card verse’ above comes:

“See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.”

Isaiah 60:2 NIV

Darkness and Light

When I think of darkness, I think of deeds done in secret, illegal or illicit. Darkness doesn’t feel safe – you’re at risk of accident or being the victim of crime. Darkness is disorienting. It’s bad.

Light, on the other hand, feels safe and good. Everything is visible and transparent. Even when under a surgeon’s knife or dentist’s drill, we can be confident that nothing will be missed if there is a bright light above us.

That’s what this ordinary Australian Christian woman thinks when it comes to darkness and light. I did a quick search to see how Bible writers used the concepts of light and darkness. The list was incredibly long. I shall only mention a few verses as they relate to Easter and our hope in these dark days.

Movement from darkness to light

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 1:1-2 NIV

The Bible starts with darkness. However, light is very quickly introduced into the creation narrative.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:3-4 NIV

And now, skipping right over Isaiah 60:1-2 (the ‘Easter verses’ quoted at the start of this blog post), let us jump to the very end of Scripture. There we read of brilliant light in the city of God – the city which we, the people of God, will one day call ‘home’.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp….

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.

Revelation 21:23, 22:3

How does God bring about this great transition from darkness to light? See Jesus’ claim:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

John 8:12.

And that is the great message of Easter. Isaiah 60:1 looks to the light of God breaking into a dark earth, while Isaiah 60:19-20 looks even further ahead. Can you spot the connection between Isaiah’s prophecy about light below and that of John’s Revelation?

The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end.

Isaiah 60:19-20

Called from darkness into light

As any good Christian will tell us, we live in a ‘now-and-not-yet’ period. Yes, Jesus has lived, died, risen again, ascended into heaven and sent his Spirit to indwell his people. And yet there is so much more to come. The history-making events of that Resurrection Sunday are like the sunrise of Isaiah 60:1-2 in which the blazing glory of God is breaking into a dark world.

This current pandemic that has turned all our lives upside-down and even ended some slams into our faces the ugly truth that we still live in a broken world in which decay and destruction remain.

If only we could understand the mindset of a New Testament Christian. Their worldview of the spiritual realm was perhaps more accurate than that of post-Englightenment Christians like me today. They were better able to grasp the meaning of passages which suggest that we are part of a cosmic battle in which children of light are pitted against the powers of this dark world. There are many verses that illustrate this concept. I shall just quote one.

But you are … a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

2 Peter 2:9b

How then should we live?

As a woman who follows Jesus, the light of life, I want to ‘live as a child of light’ (Ephesians 5:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:5). I want to ‘walk in the light’ (John 8:12, 1 John 1:7). I want to live out in this broken, aching, decaying world what it means to ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come’ (Isaiah 60:1).

But what does that mean in practice?

It means interpreting the events of these dark days in the context of eternity. It does NOT mean pretending that everything is okay right now. But it does mean very deliberately looking towards the one who is light and centering myself … ourselves … in him. Just as the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation in obedience to the risen Christ to encourage people to stand strong during the dark days of the early church, so we too need to look to him now.

Complaining and arguing are two things the apostle Paul particularly warned against even as he urged early church Christians to ‘shine like stars in the universe’ (Philippians 2:14a, 15b). That is not to say that I can’t admit that I miss gathering as a family at Easter … that I am sad not to spend time with a family member who was to have come down for the Easter holiday … and yes, that I even miss crawling out of bed at some crazy time of the morning to go and watch the sun rise with friends on Easter Sunday. That is not to say that I can’t admit that I miss the affirmation and interaction that come with both teaching and learning face-to-face with flesh-and-blood people these days. That is not to say that I must only think about the positive things that have come out of these strange times. (Yes, there are some.) But there is a bigger reality and when I focus on that, our current troubles dwindle to a healthier perspective.

Hope

We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 8:22-23

Now-and-not-yet – that’s the time in which we live. Children of the light, walking in the light – that is us. And yet it’s still only dawn, metaphorically speaking. God’s great light has broken into the world but there is so much more to come. Creation restored, sickness and sorrow long gone and society centred around God himself … all that is ahead of us.

We are living in a fallen, broken world, but this isn’t the end of the story. Arise! Shine! For the light has come! The glory of the Lord has risen upon us!

Happy Easter.

Flesh presses against flesh. The breath of my neighbour warms my cheek. The weight of my children leaning against my thighs reassure me that they are beside me and so safe even in this crowd.

I stand tall, snug and confident in my brand new cloak. I wove the fabric myself, after spinning the wool from cousin Jake’s sheep. I have never had a cloak like this before and likely never will again.

Here he comes. The Messiah – the one promised by our prophets – is about to make his grand entrance into Jerusalem. No more oppression. Or so we thought. Freedom. A new era. 

Hosanna!

Men jostle one another in their eagerness to line with palm branches the path along which a mother donkey carries our coming king, her foal by her side. We can see his head now as they come around the bend.

“Hosanna,” I yell. “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  The children join me, their voices clear and high. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

The figure draws close. People throw their cloaks down on the pathway, a poor man’s version of a royal carpet. Without another thought, I yank my brand new cloak off my shoulders and hurl it on top of the palm leaves. “Hosanna in the highest heaven,” I scream as the Promised One passes us. 

My children and I are making history. Surely this is the moment that the Psalmist was referring to when, inspired by the spirit of the Creator himself, he wrote, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD…. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:26-27).

The kids and I join the throng that is following Jesus as he makes his way up to the temple. I look down and spot my lovely new cloak, now covered with dirty footprints of animals and people. I dare not stoop to pick it up … you could get crushed in a crowd like this.

The Temple

Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee, arrives at the gates of the sparkling gold temple. The children continue to yell and scream in excitement, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

Carers dragging blind people push by me, desperate to get their loved ones to Jesus. A man with a wooden stick almost knocks me over as he unsteadily lurches through the crowd. A neighbour’s kid squirms past us and my two follow.

From inside the temple gates, I hear a sudden crash. Screams. Another crash. A flock of doves flutter over our heads. A few people force their way out of the gate, one almost knocking me over in his haste.

I stand on tip toes and strain to see through the gateway. All I can see are more heads. The report ripples through the crowd – Jesus had flipped over the tables of all the business people there. Some change foreign money to Jewish coins and others sell doves for sacrifices. 

“My house will be called a house of prayer,” he apparently said. “But you are making it a den of robbers.”  What? ‘My house’ … but this is God’s house, surely.  ‘A den of robbers…?!’ The religious leaders are not going to like this. Not one little bit.

Trouble

I look around for my children. There may well be trouble, and I need to keep them safe. Where are those two? I wiggle my way through the crowd, urgently scanning left and right. I squeeze though the gate. There they are … near the front of the crowd … oblivious to the impending storm. They are still yelling over and over, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” 

I’m close enough now to hear the formally dressed religious leaders ask Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” 

“Yes,” replies Jesus. “Have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise?” (Matthew 21:16 and Psalm 8:2).

If looks could kill…….. Actually, ‘killing’ may not just be a figure of speech. Jesus spins around and strides out of the temple complex. I push between people, grab my two by the hands and drag them away.

An ice cold dread squeezes my heart. I literally shiver. If only I had my cloak. But retrieving it will have to wait for another time. Right now, I just want to get home. I need my children to be inside with me, my husband home too, and the door firmly locked.

Holy Week Announced

Things didn’t work out as I had anticipated that day. And yet, though I didn’t know it then, these events heralded the start of a week that would quite literally change the course of history.

And my two precious children had announced it. Well … they and some of the other kids in Jerusalem at the time, anyhow. From the lips of children … my children … God had ‘called forth praise’. Standing in the temple court, surrounded by chaos and distress, yet full of hope and confidence, they had yelled, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” 

Despite scrubbing it with soapy water until my fingers were red and sore, my new cloak was never the same again. But who cares? That day, the Messiah, the promised Saviour, had entered Jerusalem as a victorious king. God himself was at work to restore his creation to himself. 

I pull my worn-out old cloak around my shoulders and hurry to join my Christian friends. Life is hard. But our hope is sure.