Tribal Stories: Groundswell

Her fingers nimbly secured the knot around the vine and the stake. She had done so many of those knots now that it had become second nature to her. Noticing the row of crops in particular with droopy leaves, she looked up at him. Their eyes met for a brief second before he picked up the watering jug and walked in her direction.

Her heart danced as the ground beneath them began soaking up the water. Much time had passed since her arrival in the southern lands, and this had become the new normal -- their new normal. Daylight hours were spent in the vegetable patch, tilling and sowing, watering and staking, and occasionally, harvesting. Their days were busy and their lives were full, and for a moment, she wondered in awe at the way that life was now.

The southern lands were not at all as she had expected. The first days were hard as she struggled to find her place. The desert people had a way of life they were committed to, and she struggled to even learn their pigeon dialect. It was a far cry from the routines of the city where everything was polished and refined. Desert life was rugged, and everyone dug deep, and it wasn't long before she discovered joy in painstaking labour and returning home with dirt under her nails.

"You're thinking again, aren't you?"

His voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up at him as she whispered a word of thanks to the forces that brought them together. The early days at the vegetable patch felt foreign and strange, but he came along and helped her understand their work. Their pulse had been in sync right from the beginning, and it didn't take long for them to begin creating a life together.

"Just... life since the city walls... It's been a while, that's all."

He nodded and continued moving the big planters around, without saying a word. She watched from a distance as he exchanged a laugh with the farmer from the next block. Smiling, she picked up another stake and drove it into the ground. The desert chiefs had a particular way they liked the stakes to be in the ground. It frustrated her to no end that it was a long and tedious method that felt like a waste of resources, and she and he had had long conversations about better ways to work the land. The long days in the vegetable patch often ended with resignation that as long as the ways of the land remained unchanged, their hands were tied.

She thought back to her tribespeople and the last news that had came from the north. A new governance was about to descend, and there was much fear about what this could do to their way of life. Her heart ached for her tribespeople who had long held out for peace and the well-being of the people, and the possibility that the dawning of the new governance could be the undoing of everything they had worked towards. Driving the stake further and further into the ground, she thought of the numerous occasions where both she and he had similarly been witness or casualty to the decisions of a few in their times in the city walls. All the pain and hurt from the years of holding peace resurged within her.

"Any harder and that stake is going to snap."

The farmer's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. With one hand shading her eyes from the sunlight, she finally noticed that daylight was ending. Dusting off her hands, she mopped the sweat off her brows and headed for the water vessel where he and the farmer were washing up for the day.

"Don't interrupt; she's probably come up with another new way to irrigate the vegetable patch and will probably launch another monologue about the chiefs and how obstinate they are about the way things are done."

She narrowed her eyes as she flicked a few drops of water at him. He was jesting, she knew, but she was struggling to find humour in the present agony.

They washed in silence for a while, aware of the heaviness of the news from the north.

"Groundswell."

She and he exchanged a brief look before turning to the farmer. Like she and he, the farmer had his own story with chiefs and governors.

"Groundswell," the farmer said again. "The decisions of a few can very well change the way of life as the impact trickles down. But we, the ones who work the ground, we have it in us to undo the impact of those decisions. One stake at a time. One knot at a time. One seed at a time. We create our everyday for our people. That is something chiefs and governors cannot take away from us."

She and he nodded in silence. If the years since the exile had taught her anything, it was that no exile, chief or governance can take away the way of life that had been passed down from her mother and mothers, her grandmother and grandmothers, the sages and her tribespeople.

Her hands found their way to the rocks. He had put holes in them so she could put them on a rope to hang around her neck.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"You shall love your neighbour as yourself."
"Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God"

As the last rays of sunlight faded for the day, she whispered words of blessing for her tribespeople in the north, and gave thanks for the wisdom from the generations. Most importantly, she gave thanks that the forces held them together.

Unfinished Stories #1: Auckland to Berlin (via Atlanta)

Date: 20150303
Location: Auckland

Time: 1312hr
Sitting in a food court downtown.
Behind, the ladies are complaining about the last meeting they had to sit through.
Across, the gentleman is leafing through his notes.

I check Facebook for the fifth time in twelve minutes.
There are no updates.
So I try Google.
The last update was an hour ago.
Twitter.
At last, there is some vague update that doesn't say very much.
We are still waiting.

I had shied away from posting much about this most recent troubling news because of a variety of reasons, amongst which one of them was that I wasn't sure where I stood about capital punishment or execution.
No, rather, I was ashamed of my upbringing that for so long, I had viewed execution only as a means to keep people out of trouble.
Execution wasn't something I wanted to talk about because there were so many grey areas I wasn't willing to explore yet.
But because a dear, dear friend pleaded and pleaded on all forms of social media, I finally paid attention.

Kelly Gissendaner

Have you met her?

I haven’t.
But I know people who have.
I know people who have heaps of stories to tell of her.
Of her life, a story that is ridden with twists and turns.
But more importantly, a life REDEEMED.

Suddenly she wasn’t just a name in the headlines anymore.
No, she was a friend.
A mother.
A minister.
A fellow follower of Christ.
And she had a story, just like I do.


My mind raced back to that one afternoon in Berlin.

My visits to Neustart had become part of the rhythm of my time in Berlin.
There are so many stories in that tiny space on Kurfürstenstraße, but there’s one that always bring a sting to my eyes at just the thought of him.

Neustart was a café that served as a safe house for sex workers in Berlin. I can’t say that I made much of a contribution to that place in my short time there, but something broke inside me that would leave a permanent mark forever.

I first met him on one of the first few visits I made to Neustart. It had been explained to us that because it was a safe house for sex workers, men were not allowed in that space. But J (identity concealed) was a different story. He had earned the trust of most of the women and was allowed to hang out there while his girlfriend was at work on the streets.

We sat down with him one afternoon. He spoke to us in brilliant English, and we learnt that he picked up the language from a fellow inmate when he was in prison. He was only a few years older than I was, but there was something in his demeanour that looked like the world had taken its toll on him. And then he laid it all out.

When he was about twelve, his parents sold him to druggies. Life on the streets led him to witnessing his best friend being shot the first time he was in Berlin when he was only eighteen. He was so matter-of-fact in telling us his story. I, on the other hand, struggled to believe that this could be real life for anyone.

After that afternoon, I was curious to hear more of his story, but we hardly got a chance to sit down with him again. I would get an update once in a while from one of the social workers there that he was doing well, and that he had checked into a rehab facility and was willing to give God a chance. In the midst of the dark stories in that space, I had found a glimmer of hope. Perhaps I could witness redemption at work in real life after all.

On my last visit there, I asked one of the social workers there if they had heard anymore from him. I had hoped for a chance to say goodbye, and to wish him well as he continued on his journey. I don’t remember how she said it, but the news broke me, and I left in tears that afternoon.

As part of the process to get clean, J had to get tested for HIV.
The test returned positive.

I remembered pleading with God that afternoon on the bus ride home. J had decided to take steps to wholeness and had been doing so well.

It wasn't fair that he had HIV.
It wasn't fair that he never stood a chance.
It wasn't fair that he wasn't even a teenager when he got sold into the drug life.

But it also wasn't fair that I wasn't the one born into that situation. I honestly couldn't say that I would have made better life choices than J tried to if I had been born into a different family. Even now, five years later, my heart still aches that I was born into privilege, and he never stood a chance.

Yet there was something that nagged at me as I struggled to make sense of the latest twist in J’s life.

That’s not the end of the story.

I had no idea what that could mean, but I could only be thankful that that thought saved me from being crippled by despair and helplessness that there was NOTHING I could do about J’s life. His story remains unfinished for me, but there was that twisted irony that I could only trust there would be redemption in his story—even if I would never get to find out what that would look like.

Perhaps I had taken the naïve and easy way out by simply clinging desperately to the belief that there HAD to be a greater being in control of J’s life instead of giving over completely to anger and helplessness. The honest truth was that I selfishly HAD to believe that there was a divine being in control. Because if that wasn’t true, everything I had given my life to so far would have been a fraud, and I was too much of a wuss to live a life without hope. While I didn’t subscribe to the belief that this divine being was, as my spiritual pops Ed puts it, “an interventionist God” who would undo J’s HIV, I NEEDED to believe that there would be an ending to J’s story that would have the ultimate redemption and grace written all over it—if for no other reason than the selfish one: I just need to be able to sleep at night.

Time: 1513hr
I was sick in my stomach waiting for an update and could not finish lunch.
So I moved to a café to start writing.

I scroll through Facebook again.
And then Twitter.
Another Google search.

Kelly’s execution was scheduled for 133 minutes ago. She was sentenced to death for the 1997 killing of her husband, having recruited an ex-lover to carry out the murder. My friend Hannah met her when she was teaching a theology course at the women’s prison in Atlanta. You can read more about that here.

Since I began working on this book, my week in Atlanta has been on my mind a lot. Like the Berlin chapter, there are so many stories from that week in Atlanta to tell, but lately there’s been that one scene that has replayed itself over and over again in my mind recently.

The motel we stayed in during our week there was right smack in the middle of where a majority of the drug deals go down. On our way back to the motel after walking the streets and talking to the homeless one night, I finally paid attention to the people gathered right outside the gates of our motel. We had met a number of druggies by then that I was starting to be able to tell which ones were high. But that was when I noticed that there were kids that hung around that street as well while mum and dad were doing… well, what they did. And the kids. What chance did they stand?

I didn’t realize it until I met J four years after Atlanta, and walked the streets of a community rampant with domestic violence as an advocate for children in Auckland two years after that: that night in Atlanta was when I was just beginning to understand that there was a brokenness in humanity that desperately needed Big Picture REDEMPTION.


Time: 1607hr
187 minutes have passed since Kelly’s scheduled execution.

Checking Facebook again.
And Twitter.
Google at this point is proving pretty worthless.

The people of Starbucks at Aotea Square have come and gone.
Life is still moving on as usual in this corner of the world, and I allow myself a moment to lament that this is what happens when your heart lives in so many different corners of the world at a time.

But I think that’s what gets me.

That Big Picture REDEMPTION is so desperately needed all around the world.

For J.
For the children on the streets of Atlanta that night who are probably teenagers and young adults by now.
And I could tell you about the children in Cambodia piled on motorbikes
And children on the streets of Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota

And grownups around the world crying out for whom Big Picture REDEMPTION.

And then I think of Kelly.
She made a decision to allow that Big Picture REDEMPTION into her life as well.
But yet humanity had somehow discerned that we would make a better judgment call on her life. 

That.
That, I cannot understand.

Allow me a moment of anger to say this:
I have found myself wondering over the last few days if it would be better for her sanity for this to be the end of it all for her.
If it would be better for the twisted nature of human judgment to end here for her.
Because if not, how long?

But yet I want to believe that there is Big Picture REDEMPTION for ALL of humanity.
That we would uncover our own desperate need for redemption that saves us from the need to judge another or inflict revenge, and leave that to the work of a more divine being: A God that sees all and knows all and reconciles all to Godself.

And so we wait.

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

Aotearoa Diaries: "Story Time"

Every once in a while, I can't help but wonder if I've completely lost the plot by choosing to ministry plant from scratch.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore the people I get to spend time with. No, really. I'm not just saying that because it's a part of my job. I would still hang out with these people even if I didn't also have the privilege of calling it "my job".

But every once in a while, when I get asked what it is that I'm actually doing, I find myself wondering if all I'm really doing is fluffing around, planning parties and hanging out with awesome people for no greater purpose. Because I'm starting this ministry plant from scratch, I have to find my own "bosses" to report to and create accountability structures that complement the style of ministry without hindering its organic DNA. And so a lot of times, this thing I claim to call "my job" just feels like fluff.

Then last week, I finally sat down and had coffee with Gypsey. We've tried several times to do what I like to call "story time," but for one reason or another, they keep getting interrupted. But in those few brief moments of "story time," I caught a glimpse of why this seemingly fluffy model of "just hanging out" wasn't actually quite so fluffy.

Gypsey reminded me that I had somehow managed to get people to hang out more regularly than she has ever remembered. I daren't claim any credit for that because all I did was tell a few people, (mostly Ben, who's the real connector of these awesome people) "hey, it would be crazy awesome if we did this...." and things just kind of happened. And even if the reasons that these pockets of people gathering semi-regularly seem somewhat "fluffy," they are seeing each other more, eating together more, annoying each other more, laughing together more, and doing dishes together more.

That. That's what makes me giddy excited.

Then tonight I met Gina at Valley Road Church's Mid-Winter Christmas dinner. "Story time" led to the discovery that we had a lot of similarities in our stories. Gina is Korean, but started high-school in Pennsylvania and moved to Texas with her host family and spent a total of ten years in the US. Four years ago, she took a job as a maths teacher and moved to Auckland. As I began explaining what I did, she simply nodded like it totally made sense. "Auckland needs people like you for pastors. People like us who have moved around before understand what it means to not really have a place of belonging in any culture anymore. And there's so many of us here in Auckland."

And then suddenly, it all made sense. Just the other day, I found myself telling David something along the lines of how my entire style of ministry comes out of my belief that my life-story was written in a way that gives me the credibility to do ministry in a certain way. And to not take that approach would be to do injustice to The One who wrote the story that way. Quite frankly, I wasn't quite convinced at the time of our conversation (given that it was early in the morning on a sicky brain didn't help much). But "story time" keeps sneaking up in the interactions with my awesome people that I'm left with no choice but to admit that I'm really not just fluffing around with no greater purpose.

And then I'm reminded that in my initial dreaming about The Bridge, I wrote something about collecting stories. I had assumed then it meant I would be writing a lot more this year, but who wants to write when you have awesome people to hang out with? (Don't freak out, I'm still going to write because it's what keeps me sane.) Yet I do truly believe in the power of stories, and not just for the ones hearing them. To give voice to and to allow stories to be heard is just as powerful and life-giving.

"Story time"

That. That's what makes me giddy excited.

Where We Come From: Of Stories And Songs

I had this discussion a few months ago with MaryAnn and Jim via Skype about what we, as the Church of God, have to offer at the ecumenical table. As churches in New Zealand tend to be more ecumenical anyway, the Church of God presence here has had many opportunities to partner with other denominations in the area--in particular an open brethren church where WCF is planted, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church (WMCNZ) as a denomination.

Because we line up fairly consistently with Wesleyan Holiness teachings, WMCNZ has welcomed us with open arms to theological conversations, particularly at their annual symposium where we sit around the table with our Nazarene and Salvationist brothers and sisters. As conversations for about the future of our partnerships continued, and as the Church of God in New Zealand continues to move forward in establishing our presence as a denomination/movement here, I began to think about what was so unique about the Church of God stream of holiness doctrine, especially in the context of New Zealand. It wasn't that I didn't believe in the one, catholic, apostolic, universal Church--it was that I believe there is room for more unity where there is diversity.

I don't remember coming away from our discussion with much of a solid conclusion (I don't think it was meant to be a close-ended conversation anyway), except for this: everybody's welcome.

In the months that passed, that discussion carried over with some of my scattered community whose theological thoughts I respect greatly. I'll confess it was tempting to try to quickly come to my own conclusions just so I could write a blog post about it and check that off the to-do list. But there was more value in waiting and mulling things over about what it was about the Church of God that I loved.

Then last week, I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with three Church of God missionary-ish folks who have lived, served and travelled all around the Church of God world. (Bear in mind there are only two ordained Church of God ministers living in New Zealand--we get pretty lonely and isolated in these parts) And then I remembered two main things I love about the Church of God.

Stories

We are people of stories. One of the things I love most about my job when I was at Global Missions was the informal gatherings where the missionaries got together and exchanged stories. With missionary communities, the stories often had the same themes:

the time when they had to eat strange dishes to be culturally sensitive
the time when they embarrassed themselves while learning the new culture
the time when something about the new culture greatly disturbed them
the time when they observed someone they greatly respected on the mission field and the lessons they learnt from them
the time when they saw God working
the time when they saw the fruit of someone else's/their own labour
the time when they learnt God was the God of the universe, not just the small parts of the world they've seen

As I sat listening to Dave, Greta and Mike reminisce about the times when their journeys intersected in Japan, and all the stories in between, I was struck by the realisation that THIS is the Church of God.

We are people who believe in a God that loves the world and a God that transcends culture.
We are people who have, for more than a hundred years now, been active in the missio Dei all around the world.
We are people who keep our teachings and beliefs alive through the sharing of stories, reminding ourselves as we serve around the world that we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Songs

One of the most strikingly Church of God moments I've experienced in my over two years in New Zealand was on Christmas morning. As we sang "Joy to the World" that morning, Mike nonchalantly broke out the bass line, which prompted both Greta and I to take the alto harmony line. Then last night as we sat together for Mike's last dinner before his return to Japan, we sang the Doxology in four-part harmony again.

It took me back to being in Anderson this summer, being surrounded by the rich musicianship that we have in the Church of God. The annual NAC tradition of singing, "Child of God" with the Park Place sanctuary choir. And more importantly, the evening services when I got to sit with my scattered community, singing side by side as if we were back in the seminary chorus all over again.

And THIS is the Church of God I love.

We are people who sing our stories.
We are people whose voices come together and brings a unity that words itself cannot describe.
We are people whose songs remind us of the giants like Charles Naylor and Barney Warren who have gone before us and paved the way.


THIS is the Church of God I love.
This is where WE come from.

Stories From The Bridge Part #1 - Christmas at a Ministry House

I first met Nesta about a week ago when Janice, Kathrin and I went to open a new bank account for the National Ministries of the Church of God.

With his, "cool, cool..." and his "sweet as," he sounded as Kiwi as the next bloke on the street. Then today, I found out he's still pretty nervous about his English, albeit less than he was 5 years ago when he first arrived in New Zealand for university. He credits the vast improvement in his language skills to a woman (who just so happened to also be from Singapore!) who was a part of a ministry house community that offered English Bible studies amongst other avenues where he had the opportunity to practise English.

When I told him that if my visa got approved, I would be running a similar ministry house, he said that was definitely needed. "Most students are here by themselves. Thankfully, my dad travelled with me from China and I had an uncle here to help support me. But it can still be lonely. And the people I stayed with in that house, we became really good friends and could help support each other."

When asked if he had plans for Christmas, he said he would have wanted to travel back to China. During his last trip home, he began to realise he needed to be able to make more trips home as he was the only child (thanks to China's one-child policy). But since he only had 2 days off from work, it has become tradition to return to the house he lived in for the last 5 years for their Christmas "family" celebration.


Nesta is only one of many international students in Auckland who was significantly supported by a ministry house. Through the ministry of The Bridge, we hope that we will be able to reach more students. Will you consider supporting our ministry?

Within the US, funds can be sent to:
Global Missions
PO Box 2420
Anderson, IN 46018
(Project number: 42.40411)

In Singapore, contact me or my mum for the account number to transfer funds.

Anywhere else, send us an e-mail at thebridge.akl@gmail.com for bank account information.

Ta muchly. We appreciate you.

Tribal Stories: Water

She laid wide awake, staring at the stars. There was no way of telling what time it was, but she was certain it wouldn't be long before the sun would rise.

In the days since the last sand storm, she hardly slept. The days were long as she worked alongside the desert people, and as night fell, she would lay her weary body down but her mind wouldn't stop.

She thought back to the critter's last visit only days ago. As usual, they hardly said two words to each other and she quite enjoyed the few moments of comfortable silence.

"You need to start making preparations for the southern lands, you know," he finally said.

She sighed. She knew he was right, but with the recent change of landscape in the desert, all that occupied her time was making sure that the desert people could resume their way of life as quickly as possible. But the side of the story she had yet to admit was that she was afraid of the uncertainty about the days ahead.

Her mothers and grandmothers taught her that the way to work the ground was different in every land, and that she needed to learn new ways again as she arrived in the southern lands. And even though her gypsy friend had told her the ground in the southern lands was rich and fertile, it provided no answers for how or where to begin. Besides, she wasn't to live in the southern lands by herself, but how would she begin to gather people?

"The ways may be different, but people are the same," the sages once said. "Where there is water, people will come."

She laid awake that night, mulling over the words of the sages. They made no sense to her. Her mind went back to the conversation with the critter.

"You're a collector of stories," he had said. "That's where you need to begin."

She knew that full well, and if she were honest, it was that which frustrated her most. In the journey to the southern lands, she had filled so many other roles that she was getting weary and easily irritated. Yet she knew that there were no stories that could be collected until the crops were growing and the people began to have food.

Suddenly it all made sense. She was a collector of stories, and having other roles to fill didn't change that. She would continue collecting stories as she worked the land, and she would speak about the water to begin gathering the people.

She fingered the rocks she held in her hands as she recited the familiar words again.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."

As the sun's first rays began to illumine the sky, she whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critter, for the village people, for the gypsy, and for the desert people. She knew their words of blessing had gone before her to the southern lands and they would carry her the rest of the way. Most importantly, she gave thanks that the forces held them together.

Tribal Stories: Weary

The sun shone bright in the morning sky as she tucked away the last of her tent-pegs. The sands were only just beginning to settle after the last storm. She wanted to spend one more day breathing in the taste of having come around the mountain and weathering another storm, but she knew it was time to keep walking.

With one hand over her brow to shield out some of the glaring rays of the sun, she squinted ahead as she tried to find her way forward. In the distance, she saw several of the desert families gathering as they began to find a way to work in the landscape that had shifted again since the last sand storm.

Since the beginning of her journey on the desert road, she had known she was just passing through. But she also knew she had a responsibility to help the desert people find a way to grow crops--never mind that she was a stranger in their land. As the days passed, she began to realise that the desert people carried with them a weariness heavier than her own. Others had come alongside to try to help them find self-sustainable ways to grow crops, but the ways they found seemed counter-intuitive to the way of life in the desert.

"If you want to know how to build life in the desert, you have to spend time with those who have lived in the desert their whole lives," her gypsy friend once said. "There may be others who, like us, are passing through the desert lands, who are trying to help. But we are all foreigners in this land, and we cannot assume to know their way of life. The desert people are the only ones who can teach us how to help them."

She wondered if that was why the desert people that had adopted her were weary. She wondered if they were so tired of trying to find their own way of growing crops that they simply took on board any new ideas that were thrown their way--even if they were counter-intuitive to the desert life.

She knew she herself was weary. She had put the wounds from the exile behind her, but the journey on the desert road had wore her out. Since the last sand storm, the landscape had shifted so much that she was left with most of the work. Even though they had received word that help was coming from the city, no one knew how long it would be before help would arrive. While she was regaining hope for the desert people, there was still work to be done in the meantime. Help that was coming from the city still had to learn the ways of the desert lands, and the desert people needed help getting ready to receive the help. She also knew her journey on the desert road would soon end, and she desperately needed time to make the preparations for her arrival in the southern lands.

"Take deep breaths," she whispered aloud, as the words of her tribespeople came to mind. "And remember, we are called to simply be faithful."

As the first tear of weariness fell, she found the rocks that had carried her through her lifetime as a wanderer and closed her fingers around them tightly.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
"Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God"

There was still work to do. But first, she had to sit down and simply weep over the weariness in the desert lands. Help was coming, but she pleaded with the forces that held them all together that there would be enough strength and hope in the desert lands to carry them in the meantime.

Tribal Stories: Sands

The winds were starting up again. The darkness of the night limited her ability to judge what the sands were going to do this time.

She had gotten quite used to life on the desert road so that whenever the winds started up, she would begin preparing for the sands that would come. Sometimes, they were just small gusts of dirt. Other times, the sands would blow so hard that even when she shielded her face, her eyes would still feel their sting.

As she readied herself for the sands, her mind drifted back to the encounter with the giant. The day came and went uneventfully, for which she was relieved, but also uneasy. At first she thought it was because she had gotten used to the perils of life during the war that an uneventful day was a nice change. But she couldn't shrug off the feeling of uneasiness. Were there to be unforeseen consequences because of an uneventful day?

But she knew her job on the desert road wasn't to worry about the giant. No, she was there to help prepare the land to produce crops for the desert people as she passed through on her way to the southern lands.

Tilling the land in the city had been easy because her mothers and grandmothers had taught her the way to work the dirt there. But her mothers and grandmothers had warned her the desert lands were a different task altogether. The climate was different, and the crops to be planted were also different. And she learnt the frustrating lesson that she could till and she could sow seeds, but then the winds would start up and the sands would come, and they would unearth all the work she had done. There had been nights where she would cry herself to sleep, frustrated with the winds and the sands. Was it even worth it? After all, she was just passing through. Why be concerned for the desert lands?

"We are simply to be faithful to our work. The forces that hold us together will bring fruit to the work we do in time," her tribespeople once said. She didn't understand, but their words haunted her frequently and would help ease frustration. Before long, the sands would come again, and she would lean into those words again.

She also knew her time in the desert was coming to an end. While she was relieved and looked forward with anticipation to the possibilities that the southern lands held, she had come to realise in the recent days how attached she had gotten to the work of the desert and the desert people. She had come to the desert alone, uncertain of her work. But in the time that she had spent working alongside the desert people, shielding each other from the sands and figuring out how to plant crops in their land, the desert people, too, had become a part of her tribe. The pain of leaving the city was only just starting to heal. She wasn't ready for another dose of pain when the time on the desert road ends.

She fingered the rocks she held in her hands for they had carried her through her lifetime as a wanderer.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."

She didn't have much, but she had the rocks. And she had her people whose stories she took with her as she continued on her journey.

Looking to the heavens that night, she whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critter, for the village people, for the gypsy, and for the desert people. Most importantly, she gave thanks that the forces held them together.

Tribal Stories: Held Together (Guest Post)

She sat in the field, watching the sunset. It had been a hard journey. She had been home for nearly two fortnights, but she still didn’t feel completely restored from her days in the prairie lands. Looking back, the time seemed to have been short, compared to the time she had spent in other villages, but the difficulty of living on the prairie had made the days seem long and endless. She was sustained with the word that would come from the tribespeople and by the forces that held them together. It had been often in these two fortnights that she had sat in these fields, watching the maize and the wheat, giving thanks for these forces and for the tribespeople who made those forces feel almost tangible at times. Tonight, she thought of the wanderer of her people. The wanderer, who had become her sister.

Word had come from the southern desert lands where the wanderer labored and spoke the peace of their people. She knew of the troubles that had been swelling there in the desert heat. Her wanderer-sister was weary. It was difficult at times to simply trust the forces that held them all, to also hold so much together in that southern desert land. She reached for the rock that their sage had given them, the sage who had long gone on to live fully in the Kingdom: “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” We are the people of peace, and Love is our story, she reminded herself. Those forces do not break, no matter how strong the troubles, no matter how great the war. He was holding her wanderer-sister together too.

She thought again of the long gone sage. It was this same sage who had commissioned the older tribespeople to their work, telling them, “You are to be about building villages on the edge of the kingdom. This is your task.” We are trying, she said aloud. Her hands still ached from the tent ropes she had wielded in the prairie lands, trying to build a small village there. She turned them over and over, noting how the rope burns were now fading. She had labored hard, but the tents she had set up were always whisked away by the violent winds and heavy rains that always seemed to come from out of nowhere. The work had been difficult to say the least, and she had become so used to the feel of rope in her hands. The ropes were useful in the work, to be sure, but her hands were not meant to pull rope; they were meant to hold stones. The wanderer had reminded her of that. She had learned that she had to let go of the rough, dry rope in order to feel the smoothness of the stones, for they wouldn’t both fit in her palms. When she would let herself remember this truth, the coolness of the stones would soothe the places where the work had done damage. She reached for the other two stones, and squeezed all three together in her rope-worn hands,

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
“He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

She would not be in the homeland for long. This, she knew for certain. There were villages to build on the edge of the kingdom in other lands. What was not certain was what was waiting ahead on the journey. Yet, this was true for all of the tribespeople. They were making a new way in the lands to which they had been scattered. This was their work, their task; this is what they must be about. The forces that pushed them forward also held them together and to one another, and for this confidence, in the face of so much uncertainty, she gave thanks.

The sun was setting, and the sky was still pink from the warmth it had left behind. She lifted her face to the stars that dotted the sun scorched sky and breathed blessings and thanks for her mothers, and grandmothers, and for the sages, and her dear tribespeople. She prayed for protection and strength of heart for her wanderersister. Especially, this night, she gave thanks for the One who is before all things in the journey and is holding all things together in even the most uncertain of times.

Tribal Stories: Tilling

She patted down the last bit of dirt, covering the last of the sprouts. Dusting her hands off, she pushed herself back on her feet, took a step back and took a deep breath.

Days had passed since her most recent visit to the city. The road had led her down an unexpected winding path toward the giant, giving her a bit more time to think. In the last few days, she set up camp at the base of the mountain and waited.

Her mind drifted back to the days before the war. Life had been pleasant. Simple. Her mothers and grandmothers worked the earth, and when she had been adopted, she eventually picked up the trade as well. She remembered the long hours of tilling the land. As a child, it wasn't the most pleasant way to spend the days because it seemed like tedious work with nothing much to show. But her mothers and grandmothers would always say that tilling was an important job; for a well-tilled land made good seedbed for crops.

As she grew older, she began to understand her responsibility better. There wasn't much to show, but she began to enjoy digging deep into the ground, turning up the earth, and loosening up hardened dirt. It used to frustrate her that she would only be allowed to help with that little bit before she got moved to a different plot of land. She wanted to do more; sow a few seeds perhaps, even help gather in the harvest.

"We don't always get to choose what we're good at, child," her mothers and grandmothers would say.

So she decided to learn everything there was to learn about tilling--it was her responsibility to their people.

In the more recent days since the exile, she began remembering that there was tilling to do even in the desert lands if she were to help the desert people begin life. As she spent her days working the land, her mind was still on the giant, and she feared what he might bring for the people in the desert lands. She wondered if her work on the ground would be worth it if there was to be no life after the encounter with the giant. And she wondered too, if she--they--would get away unscathed, and if she had what it took to stand up against him.

Then she remembered what her mothers and grandmothers used to say.

"There is no 'Them'. There is only 'Us'. We are all Us."

She brushed away the first tear with the back of her hand. Perhaps that was the hardest part of the war--that it was all "Us" fighting against "Us". But the years of war left her wondering if they still believed they were all "Us". She herself, she knew, was guilty of forgetting every once in a while. One of her tribespeople once had to remind her to dig deep into the stories of their people--that Love was their story.

The giant, too, was "Us," and only wanted what was best for the desert lands--even if she may not completely see eye to eye with him. She hoped they both remembered that when they eventually meet.

She picked up the rest of her tools, including the two rocks.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."

Looking to the heavens that evening, she whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critter, for the village people, for the gypsy, and even for the giant. Most importantly, she gave thanks that the forces had allowed her that little extra time to not just till the land but sow a few seeds this time around.

Tribal Stories: Earth and Time (Guest Post)

He sat thoughtfully at the edge of his field while the last rays of daylight disappeared over the horizon.  Many weeks had gone into the preparation of this year’s crops, and soon it would be time for the harvest to come in.  He always felt a sense of ambivalence about this time of year:  the harvest could be magnificent, or it could be eliminated through any of a number of tragic circumstances.  Storm, drought, thievery, and even the nature of wild beasts threatened to harm the labor of his hands.  He could sense that the harvest was near.  For all his readiness, though, only Time would dictate when the ripening would be complete.  All he could do is sit and wait…and keep watch.

News from a far-off land occupied his thoughts:  details of the escalating war in the southern desert lands.  He first learned of this news while conducting business in the city.  The wanderer, soon to depart for the war-torn south, had met with him in the city some weeks earlier.  She was concerned about the war, and yet she felt compelled to give herself for the peacemaking efforts.  She spoke of her tribespeople and of their shared mystical heritage.  He could not fully understand her native dialect, but their common respect of Earth and Time helped them to communicate with each other. 

Earth and Time.  His business, his activities, his religion revolved around these two poles of faith.  From his earliest days, he had been taught to respect Earth and Time.  He had learned his father’s trade, that of growing crops for the community’s good, by studying his father for some years.  Now he worked his own field, applying the basic principles of his religion, the depth of which he was only now beginning to appreciate:

“Respect Earth, for Earth gives life.”

“Respect Time, for Time gives friendship.”

Respect for Earth was easy; growing crops took all his strength, but those crops gave life to him and his community.  He could not understand Earth, but he depended on Earth’s love for each year’s needs.  Respect for Time was more difficult.  Surely, Time dictated when the ripening would be complete, but from his childhood a question plagued him:  How could Time give friendship?

Once he began working Earth on his own, he learned the true value of Time:  not to ripen crops, but to strengthen relationships among fellow laborers.  Growing crops was a lonely profession, but his time in the city had reminded him that he did not labor alone.  The wanderer, different as her journey was from his, sat next to him in the city one night some weeks earlier.  She spoke of her tribespeople and of their shared mystical heritage, and then she spoke of how he was included in those groups.  She gave thanks for Time which had brought them together in the city.  She gave thanks for Earth which would connect them even after they parted ways.  And then she pulled two small stones out of her pack, gave them to him, and said:

“You say, ‘Respect Earth, for Earth gives life.’
You say, ‘Respect Time, for Time gives friendship.’
I say, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
I say, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Perhaps we are not so different.”

He sat thoughtfully at the edge of his field.  Daylight was fleeing.  The harvest was not yet ready, but soon it would come, just as it always did for his father.  He rolled the two small stones over and over in his hands.  And then he looked to the heavens and uttered a prayer of thanksgiving, for Time indeed had given friendship. 

Tribal Stories: Gypsy

It had been another restless night. Between another haunting dream and the critter's visit the day before, she hardly slept a wink.

The critter had brought a fresh basket of supplies and a word of warning. There was a giant up ahead in the mountain who was known to be temperamental. Her tribespeople who had had previous encounters with the giant had come home with battle scars, but there had also been others who had friendly encounters and came home unscathed. She recalled the promise she had made to her tribespeople, that when the time came to meet the giant, she would hold to the stories of their people as her guide.

Even though she came from a people of peace, she couldn't shake the feeling as if she was getting ready for war. As she gathered up her tent that morning, she made up her mind to head for the city not too far away. In the more recent years of war, she would visit the other cities nearby whenever she needed to clear her head. The little adventures renewed hope for her to keep at the restoration efforts, because they reminded her of what good cities could achieve.

She knitted her brows together as a sad smile crept on her face. For all the years of war she endured, her instinctive reaction in times of uncertainty was still to return to the city--even if not the one she just left behind. The city was everything she had dedicated her life to, and even in the worse years of war, it remained the parent that taught her all she knew. That morning, she needed comfort and reassurance that the forces were still at work to make all things good--and the only place she knew to go was back to the city.

When she arrived that morning, she hadn't unexpected to run into the gypsy lady, even though she knew that was a place she frequented. Their first encounter had been equally unexpected. She was walking home with someone she had just met in the market after the day's work, and the gypsy lady was there at the door to greet them as they came through. In the short exchange, she couldn't help noticing she had the pattern of threads on her sandals. She couldn't make sense of the threads at the time, but she ran into the gypsy lady again and again--too many times that she eventually realised the forces were at work again. In the more recent years of war, the gypsy lady had been the first to remind her of her dream of village life when she invited her back to her village.

She hadn't encountered the gypsy lady since before the night of the exile. In all their exchanges prior, the conversations had been brief, but there had been enough trust built between them that she knew to depend on the friendship of the gypsy lady. She had promised herself not to talk about the exile, but as mystical encounters go, the gypsy lady asked enough questions that she found herself giving away half the exile story.

Again, her friend reminded her of the village life. Again, she felt the beckoning to the southern lands.

As the friends parted ways that day, she found confidence in her steps again. The giant was still ahead, but she had found peace enough for the next leg. Even if she would have to battle the giant, the forces continued to be at work for good.

Her fingers found their way to those rocks again.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."

As she began her journey back to the road, she looked to the heavens and again whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critter, for the village people, and for the gypsy. Most importantly, she gave thanks for the forces that held them all together.

Tribal Stories: Threads

Her fingers grazed the surface of the water lightly. Good enough, she thought. Her feet badly needed soothing after the distance they had covered, but she wasn't sure how the afternoon sun would have affected the water in the stream.

She stuck one foot in then another, as she slowly exhaled and allowed the shallow stream to wash over her feet. Of the days since she left the city walls behind, the last few had been the hardest. The more distance she covered, the further away she felt from her mother and mothers, her grandmother and grandmothers, the sages and her tribespeople. What if the southern lands were only a myth conjured up by the sages? What if there would never be life there? What if all that they had taught her would never be enough for her to survive by herself outside of the city walls? What if they had all been wrong about her leaving, and she had simply been too prideful to turn around and walk back?

She thought again of her tribespeople. Would they understand that she was still a part of their cause? Would they forgive her for walking away while they were entrenched in war? And more importantly, could she forgive herself?

There was a stinging in her eyes as she fought to hold back the tears. She hadn't cried since the night at the tree with the sages and her tribespeople, and she was determined that she wouldn't. Warriors don't cry, she told herself. They all knew it was going to be a hard journey, but she hadn't expected it to get this hard so quickly. She missed the comfort of the city walls and the predictability. Even if the wars continued to rage, at least there was a routine and rhythm to life in the city. Most of all, she missed the conventional wisdom of her mothers and grandmothers and the sages. No one knew what laid ahead on that road, except for the forces that held them together. On the easiest days of the journey, she could be at peace with that.

She waded a little deeper into the stream, trying to forget for a few moments that the road was still calling. There was an odd texture under her right foot, and the stream was shallow enough that she caught sight of a small piece of red material.

It was a pattern of threads she recognised from the ancestral home. She fingered it lightly, wondering how it would have gotten there in the barren desert. There was something haunting about its appearance in the desert road, but she couldn't quite place it.

And then she remembered. It had been many, many years ago before the war, and even before her arrival in the city. It had appeared in her very first dream, before she understood dreams to be significant, and even before she knew about the existence of the city. She remembered the dream too well, and all the dreams in between, if only because of the ways they haunted her.

So much time had passed since that very first dream. The years in the city had cost her the innocent wonderment she used to have for those dreams. It wasn't that she didn't believe in them anymore--she couldn't help it because they haunted her especially in the years of war. It was that she had stopped being in awe of the way they carried her through the uncertainty.

And the threads. There was no way to explain how and why they bothered her, except that it was as if the forces had timed their appearances. The years in the city taught her to be rational, but nothing about the threads was rational. Not when she had found the threads on the road into the city at the very beginning, or when it was on the material worn by the village people when she first met them. There was nothing rational about it appearing on the unexpected basket of supplies the sages handed her when she first began her apprenticeship collecting stories either. As she allowed herself to dwell on it, memories of the other numerous occasions of their appearance came to mind.

"Trust your instincts," her mothers once told her. She hadn't realised it then, but she had only learnt to fully do that not just because it had been wisdom from her mothers, but because the threads would show up after as a mystical guide.

She still struggled to make sense of how walking away from the city walls was supposed to help with the war efforts. She only knew it wasn't that she no longer believed in the city walls, or that the village life would be better. The sages once spoke of the mystical ways of their ancestors. That mysticism came from the stories of her people gave her peace enough to keep walking the road of the unknown. She could only trust in the stories of her people that it will all make sense when the time came.

The road was still calling, but she pulled herself out of the stream and pitched her tent for the night. As she laid her head down that evening, she picked up the rocks marked with the stories of her people and recited the words again.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

And then she looked to the heavens and whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critters, and for the village people. More importantly, she gave thanks for the forces that held them all together.

Tribal Stories: Village

Her pace had slowed down since the first days of exile. The initial adrenaline was wearing off. The sages had cautioned that this was going to be a long journey, and that she would eventually need to slow down to have enough for the rest of the road.

A few days had passed since the critter's last visit. She hadn't been willing to admit it, but the critter's words bothered her a great deal. Had she given up too soon? Should she have tried a little longer? What if he was right that she still had something good by remaining in the city--even if not as one of the restorer of the walls?

Her mind drifted back to the years in the city. There had been other times that had past where she had been just as close to leaving the city, but there was one in particular that came to mind. She struggled to push aside the sorrowful memories that came with that time because she only wanted to recall why she had stayed.

She had gone to see one of her mothers then, hoping for a remedy that would help her through that period of pain. But there was no offer of an elixir or medicinal herb; she was simply told of a village outside of the city walls where she could go to find some rest.

No one could tell her what life was going to be like in the village, except that it would be good. She hadn't quite learnt to naturally trust her mothers and grandmothers or the sages yet, but there had been something in the forces that held them together that compelled her to walk in the direction of the village.

In the years since her involvement with the war, the time in the village had been the brightest spark in her memory. It had given her hope that a different way was possible--a way that involved simply learning how to build life together, how to dispute without bloodshed, and more importantly, how to communally appreciate the forces that held them together.

The night she began her journey back to the city, she had resolved to find ways to continue the village life while continuing the restoration work. She wanted to believe that her time in the village wasn't simply respite, but that she had learnt skills that she could bring back to the city to help at least herself and her tribespeople live differently. But before long, the restoration efforts took too much from her, and she quickly forgot about the village life.

She hadn't said much to her mother or mothers, or her grandmother or grandmothers, or to the sages or her tribespeople, but she had wondered if the path to the southern lands would lead her to start a village. There was so much uncertainty along that road to begin, and she feared that mentioning the village that early in the journey would only raise hopes for a greater disappointment should it not turn out that way.

Her mind drifted back to the critter's words.

"The road to the south is rife with uncertainty. Wouldn't it be better to go with a little more support from the city?"

She wondered if he was right. Perhaps it had been too soon. Perhaps a few more battle scars wouldn't make that much of a difference on her already battered-down body. But then she remembered the nights of darkness when the pain had been so intense that she pleaded with the forces to quickly end it for her. And then she remembered the words of one of her mothers.

"It's not supposed to be this hard, child."

If she had been willing to admit it, it was the dream of life in the village that had finally given her the freedom to go into exile. The village had been a part of those dreams that haunted her too, but it had seemed too big to become reality, and too good to be true. The years of war had taught her to stop believing good things would ever happen for her. Besides, she was too young to know how to start a village.

She shook her head as if it would help clear her thoughts. She had learnt from her time in the village that life was different in the village. The village people had taught her that the village didn't start because one person decided a village needed to be started. No, it was a group of people deciding they wanted to form a way of life together, and everyone had a role to play. There were the ones who prepared the meals, and the ones who taught the way of the forces that held them together. There were the ones who were healers and the ones who welcomed others into the village.

She had learnt that her role was the collector of stories. The village people valued stories as foundation for their way of life. Collecting stories came easy for her, but she had never understood that to be of value until then. The years of the war had limited her time for stories, and she found that she greatly missed that. She wondered if life in the southern lands would allow for that.

But it wasn't time for life in the southern lands yet. With the southern lands still far out of sight, it wouldn't be appropriate to dwell on those dreams yet. Her role until then, was to keep walking.

Her fingers found their way to those rocks again, and she clasped them firmly in her hands.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."

As she continued putting one foot in front of another, she looked to the heavens and again whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, for the critters, and for the village people.

Tribal Stories: Way

The sun was shining as she opened her eyes.

It had been a restless night as her sleep was plagued with dreams of the city walls, and she was startled to find tears streaming down her face as she awoke. It bothered her greatly because she had learnt from the years of war not to ignore those dreams.

But there was no time to think about those dreams. The southern lands were still a long distance away and she had to keep going. She slowly crawled out of the tent and waited.

Finally, the critter appeared with the basket of fresh supplies for the next little bit of the journey. The critter was not one to follow a regular schedule, but she had come to learn that each time her supplies got low, he would be there.

He lingered longer than usual that morning, casting a questioning look every once in a while, but not saying a word.

"What is it?" she finally asked.

"I don't get it. Why did you leave? Sure, nobody likes war, but there still was a place for you in the city, and there was certainty. All the years you gave to the wall restoration efforts would have equipped you well to lead others in that cause. Why didn't you wait a little longer, train up a few others before you go? Besides, the road to the south is rife with uncertainty. Wouldn't it be better to go with a little more support from the city?"

She looked straight past him as her mind went back to the dreams that had plagued her while she lived in the city. She thought of the baby amongst her tribespeople that she got to hold just before her departure from the city--the same baby in the dreams that plagued her. There was too much to explain, and she didn't know where to begin. The southern lands had been a part of those dreams too, but she had spent so much time deliberately ignoring them while focusing on the restoration work that she had forgotten about them until they recently came back to haunt her.

Finally, she shook her head.

"Way has closed, Monchhichi," she said, recalling the words of the sages. "I don't understand it enough to tell you the story yet, but maybe someday that time will come. All I know is, way will open. I don't know when, where or how long it will take. But certainty has never been a part of my story--except for the certainty in the rocks that hold the stories of my people."

Her fingers found their way to those rocks again.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."

They had become the only guide for her journey. As she gathered up the last of her tent-pegs, she looked to the heavens and again whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, for her tribespeople, and for the critters.

Way will open. Until then, she will keep walking.

Tribal Stories: Exile

She drove the last tent-peg in the ground before dusting her hands off. There was just one spot outside the tent where the rocks were smooth enough for her to plant herself down for a few moments to take in everything that had happened.

She had been on that path for days now. The city walls were no longer in sight, and every day, she had to tell herself to take another step forward so that the pain of leaving those walls behind wouldn't consume her.

Dark clouds had been looming over the city for a while. She wanted to stick around as long as she could to continue the battle that the whanau had unwillingly gotten involved with. The ancestral stories spoke time and again that they were people of peace, warriors who would only defend the weak and powerless. She remembered sitting with her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers, as they told her the stories of their people. And every time they told the stories, they brought out the two small rocks that had been passed down from generation to generation.

Ka mea a Ihu ki a ia, Kia whakapaua tou ngakau, tou wairua, tou hinengaro, ki te aroha ki te Ariki, ki tou Atua.
He rite ano te tuarua ki tenei, Kia aroha koe ki tou hoa tata, ano ko koe.

She had heard those words over and over as a young child, and had done all she could to defend those two small rocks that held the story of her people.

But the time came when some grew restless and no longer believed in the city. She wondered if they had forgotten the stories as she grieved over the threats of civil war.

War eventually came, and she couldn't simply sit and watch. At first, she tried to restore the walls that had begun crumbling, because it was against all that her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers had taught her to pick up arms. Before long, she realised that it was going to take more than her and a few of her tribespeople to restore those walls as timber and ore continued to fall from the destruction of the walls. Few in the city were left unaffected as the war raged on, and she wasn't sure if her own battle scars hurt more or if watching the hurt inflicted on others did.

The years of war dragged on. She had little strength left to keep working on the walls, but it had become her new normal.

The night came when a fire broke out and she tried to help put it out, but they told her she didn't belong. She was a child adopted by her mothers and grandmothers, but she had never felt that she didn't belong until then. They said that in a city already war-torn and low on resources, they couldn't keep her around, and told her to return to her birth-mother and grandmother. None of it made any sense to her because they were all only a part of that city by adoption. All that she had given to restore the city didn't matter. Neither did the scars inflicted on her by the years of war. But she came from a people of peace, and it was against everything her mother and mothers, and her grandmother and grandmothers had taught her to try to speak against them.

Uncertain of how to proceed, she went back to the tree where the sages gathered. They were just as war-weary as she was, if not more. For a while, they simply sat and wept over the state of the city they loved so dearly.

Finally, one of them spoke up. There was deep pain in his eyes as he spoke.

"Child, it might be time for you to leave. Not forever; just until your wounds begin to heal. The fire has nothing to do with you, but you're not going to be able to achieve anything while your wounds are deep and many."

The other sages gathered around him in agreement. They sat and wept a while longer, and she found her mind drifting to her other tribespeople knee-deep in war debris. She hoped they understood she wasn't leaving forever, or abandoning their cause.

They sent her away to gather the essentials for her journey. Her mother and mothers, and grandmother and grandmothers packed up her tent and spoke words of blessing and protection. The sages brought out duplicates of the two rocks of their people, and the third that they kept for war-time as they spoke the blessing ritual given to those who, like her, have gone into exile. And finally, her tribespeople came, each one with one of her tent-pegs with their names marked on them, symbols of the tribe that go with her and keep her grounded to her people as she went.

The sages spoke of a desert land down south where she could rest for a while. The land would be dry and barren, and she would have to travel alone for a while. But her mother and mothers, and grandmother and grandmothers, and the sages and her tribespeople went with her, if only in spirit, and new life will begin again eventually.

That night, in that desert land, she picked up the rocks marked with the stories of her people and recited the words that had become so familiar.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
"Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God"

And then she looked to the heavens and whispered words of blessing and thanks for her mother and mothers, and grandmother and grandmothers, for the sages, and for her tribespeople.

Where We Come From: Holiness and Unity Part #3

One of the first things I had the privilege of being a part of when I arrived in Anderson last week was the unveiling and dedication of the Church of God Interpretive Center. The Interpretive Center has been the dream of outgoing (and now former) General Director of Church of God Ministries, Dr Ron Duncan for as long as he has been in the office. To see it completed and unveiled just before his retirement is, as Ms Martha, his wife, says, "a dream come true".

Dr Merle Strege, the historian of our movement and one of the brains behind the Interpretive Center, said at the unveiling that, "We, as the Church, are a story-telling people. To know where we are going as a movement, we have to tell the stories of where we came from."

And so we continue to tell our stories. Not because we should live as if D.S. Warner were still alive, or in fear that he would flip in his grave. But because we are a reformation movement, and the spirit of reformation should continue to move us forward.

So we fill the pages not simply with words that help us remember the historical events, but with acts that remind us to live out the spirit of reformation. We continue to tell stories about holiness and unity, not just as narratives to pass on to our children, but as intentional decisions to keep moving forward.

Because that's where we come from. We are people of a reformation movement, and we are people who continue living out our theology of holiness and unity.

Where We Come From: Homesick

The year was 2007, and it must have been either June or July. Holly, Keren and I had, on this random night, decided we were going to "roadtrip" to Ivanhoe's for ice-cream, as college students spontaneously do. I don't remember what else was on the playlist that night, except for two of Keren's favourites at the time. The windows were down, and we were singing at the top of our lungs, "Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend!" and "Oh, **** it, I'm gonna have a party!"

I don't know what it was like for the Holly and Keren. But six years have passed, and I look back at that "roadtrip" now and think of it as a coming of age marker for me. Only a couple months ago, I had walked across the platform in Kardatzke Wellness Center as a celebration of the culmination of three ridiculous years' work towards a bachelor's degree. Anderson University had by then become a place where I had struggled long and hard with my self-identity, and just like that, those three years were over. Keren and I had by then had several long discussions about our dreams about the future, and she was just beginning to find her place while I was still looking for mine.

You see, Keren was a Third-Culture kid. Born in El Salvador, she eventually moved to Romania when her parents took a missionary assignment with a church there. She, and my other TCK friends, talked often about how they could never simply check one box when it came down to filling out forms about where they came from. She was at a conference for international students once, and when it came time for breakout sessions, attendees were asked to split into groups based on the region she came from. Was she to go to the one for Latin America or the one for Europe? There was never one single box to check.

I remembered one of our conversations being about the things we were passionate about. She said she was slightly jealous of friends who had found their niche in their passion for social justice, or art, or something of the sort, because she hadn't found her own. I remembered thinking the same thing. I loved music, but having studied it at the college level with an over-emphasis on performance (which I hated) killed it.

Then one day, she had just gotten back from a weekend in Chicago where she had been a part of a conference called, "Displace Me". It was a movement about creating awareness of displaced people. After all the time spent trying to figure out which box to check, she finally found it. Her passion. Working with displaced people because she herself was displaced.

That had all just fallen into place weeks before that summer. Then before that summer was over, her life was taken.

It was years before I started really processing everything that happened that summer. You see, I had forgotten about the phonecall I received that night on the "roadtrip" to Ivanhoe's. In our laughter and singing, we missed the ramp for the motorway twice, and ended up halfway to Columbus, Ohio. We had gotten so frustrated that we eventually decided to simply head home, but ended up missing the off-ramp for the Anderson exit as well. Somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, Dad had rung up to chat and was asking about how things were progressing with my job search. By the time I hung up, I was even more frustrated from trying to explain to Dad the cultural differences in the job search process.

Holly and Keren calmly listened to my ranting for a while before Keren finally said, "You know, our parents haven't lived here themselves. They may have some ideals about what life is like here, but they are not the reality that we live in. And it isn't anybody's fault, we just have to learn to adapt to this new reality that we live in different worlds now."

It wasn't until years later when I began processing that I realised I had become displaced too. I had spent significant amount of time with my Missionary Kid/Third-Culture Kids friends while in college to know the traits of a TCK, and to begin to understand the way they think. But I had never saw myself as a TCK until then.

For a few years after that, I struggled to navigate the waters of this new revelation that a new chapter had begun in the pages of my self-identity. It was hardest around November because I would be celebrating American Thanksgiving with Danielle's family, thinking about the right time to call or e-mail Dad on his birthday. Then right after that, the countdown towards the time I left wintry Anderson for sunny Singapore would begin and I would get particularly homesick thinking of time with the cousins, the BFFs, the church family and all the yummy food. The night before I boarded the plane would usually be the worst. I always love going, but I hate leaving. It's in that in-between time that I feel most displaced.

Nine years later, this displacement hasn't gone away. I've moved yet again, and the understanding of homesickness has re-shaped itself as well. It doesn't help that even with all the diversity in Auckland, folks here still take one look at me, hear me speak and automatically ask the dreaded, "Where are you from?" Yes, I know I'm yellow on the outside, sound like white America, and have the black, red and gold of Germany hanging in the Snuggery where I live, but the truth is, I have too many other colours on the inside. I would happily don the black, red and green of my Kenyan sister, Emily, the vibrant flowers of my Island whanau, while wearing the intricately beaded headpieces of the Lakotas, a people near and dear to my heart.

And the in-between times... Gosh, the in-between times are the worst. Nina who has become one of my Auckland church mums came up to me at church yesterday, gave me a big hug and said, "You've been a bit homesick, haven't you?" The tears came really close, but I wasn't sure if it was because someone noticed, or if it was because I hadn't even noticed it myself until she pointed it out. There's so much here that I love and wouldn't be ready to leave, even if just for a month. But there's a part of me that's already in Portland having bubble tea with Arthur and a massive pow-wow with Cassie. Another part of me has already tasted the corn and cherry tomatoes from Heidi's garden, and solved all the problems of the world with the semiNerdian friends. And still another part of me has already snuggled with Hannah and thrown fries at Amanda.

And maybe that's why I love airports so much. Because I feel less alone in the in-between-ness, even if no one else in the waiting lounge is as crazy/displaced enough to be processing these thoughts.

I was scrolling through old photos on Facebook earlier and found this one, taken in front Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. It was one of the first days we were there and there were various exhibits that we could take photos with. Some were historical; others political; still others, simply funny. This little guy here though, reminded me too much of myself. By the time I got to Germany, I had come to the realisation that no matter what part of the world I move to or how many times I move, wherever I sleep that night would be home, but I would also still be homesick for at least one of the other homes.

That is the new normal now. And it will be ok.

Emily sent me this photo via Whatsapp today. I hadn't expected it because it wasn't a significant date. But it was the reminder I needed that I wasn't alone in this warped in-between place. A few months after Keren died, they planted a tree on campus in remembrance of her. When I still lived in Anderson, I would visit on her birth and death anniversary with the yellow flowers she wanted on her last birthday. It became a place of solitude in the summer months as well. Months before I moved, I told Emily that I wasn't sure what I would do anymore on her birth and death anniversary. She offered to simply bring flowers to visit whenever she was able. Emi, thank you.

This. This is where we come from.

Where We Come From: Holiness, Unity, Servanthood part #1

"Holiness, Unity, Servanthood"

Ours wasn't a family that went to church our whole lives, and I still remember the days when Mum would take my brother and I church-hunting. But as long as I remember going to church, I remember those words to be inscribed on the walls of the building that we went to.

As a child, I remember staring at those words, thinking, "I know those words exist in the Bible. And if they are also appear on the walls of this building, and on the front page of those papers they hand out when we walk in to church, they must be pretty important. But they sound so grown up and fancy, and I'll never understand, much less achieve, what they mean."

Fast forward about twenty years, and I'm sitting in my bedroom here in Auckland, pondering those same words. Except now, they've been inscribed in my DNA as a follower of Jesus. Lots have happened between then and now, and a lot more is about to happen.

My mind flashes back to the silver letters on the front wall of the sanctuary in the new building of the church I grew up in.

"Holiness. Unity. Servanthood."

These are stories of Where We Come From--
This is the small part of my Christian heritage
The movement I claim roots in
The Church of God that I love dearly.

Where We Come From: A Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion

I don't usually do this, but here's a bit of shameless self-promotion of a couple pieces of writing that have gone to print recently.

"Sacred Spaces in the City" (see page 5) is a piece on urban ministry that I was asked to write for Communion, the main publication of the Church of God in North America.

And my friend and teacher, Kimberly Majeski just tweeted that the book, "Called to Minister, Empowered to Serve," a collaborative publication that I had the privilege to be a part of, is now available for purchase. Kimberly writes,

"Edited by Dr. Mary Ann Hawkins this book is a collaboration of love by women clergy and scholars in the the Church of God Movement."

MaryAnn and Jim have been mentors and "church parents" to me through my seminary years. When MaryAnn asked if I would contribute a piece for this collaboration about my call to ministry, I couldn't say no. Besides, it was also a reminder that I was a part of a bigger chorus of voices that share the same struggles in ministry, and especially with other women who face the daily struggle with their call in a vocation that is more often male-dominated.

The publishing process usually takes enough time for me to forget that I've written a piece that's gone to print. It's not usually till a friend says something about it that I remember someone actually believed I had something to contribute to the bigger global conversation--enough to "pester" me to make my voice heard.

These are the stories of Where We Come From--and a reminder that it's never been about me in the first place.