What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving? Family? Food? Snow perhaps? Sure, those all sound about right. For me, something we always did before having our own family dinner was volunteering at the community Thanksgiving dinner at church. Potsdam is a town surrounded by a fair amount of elderly and rural poor, and our dinner was a place that anyone from the community could come for a free, friendly Thanksgiving meal. We went all out...we had the turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, and more sides and pies than you can count. So finding myself in Liverpool volunteering at food pantry on the afternoon of Thanksgiving my friends worked at seemed about right.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Thanksgiving is a day of plenty. We go so far as to wear our "eating pants" so we can be comfy while we stuff our bellies. Of course it's a time to give thanks for all that we have. But I want to challenge the idea that this is all there is to Thanksgiving. As we give thanks, surely we have to remember those who don't have the same opportunity to give thanks. Those without homes, without families, without food. And we can't just sit idly by. Our call as Christians is to care for others, no matter where they come from, no matter what they flee. To love, as Christ loved us.
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Admittedly, sometimes, when I get caught up in the rush of the morning commute, or meeting up with friends for coffee, I can forget that I am here in London for a year of ministry and mission. I've gotten so accustomed to life here, that I am thankful for the reminders, which come as often as I forget. This past week that reminder came in the form of the Partnership for World Mission conference, held in Derbyshire. The theme was Beyond our Borders: Churches Under Pressure. Speakers included Irfan Jamil from the Lahore Diocese of Pakistan, Bishop Rob Martin from the Marsabit Diocese in Kenya, and Bishop Mano Rumalshah, a former member of the Church in Pakistan and member of the Church of England. It was a wonderful time to meet like minded people from across the UK as well as the world. We worshipped together, talked together, prayed together. Over the last week, as I've been meditating on the experience, three main thoughts stood out...
1) Whenever we pray SOMETHING happens
This conference was, in many ways, like every mission conference I've attended since childhood. It told many of the same stories: religious persecution, treatment of women, poverty. Some of the women sitting at my table, who clearly had been involved with international mission for some time, began to commiserate. It seems like we've been praying for decades and nothing has changed! they said. Nothing has changed. Can you think of a more depressing thought? For all our prayers, for all our mission work, we still are fighting each other and killing each other needlessly. Women are still raped. Children still starve. Truly, what has changed?
And then I thought of something that a priest I knew once said about healing ministry: whenever we pray, something happens. It may not be exactly what we were praying for, but something always happens. In fact, the answers to our prayers generally don't manifest in the way we expect. Look at Jesus himself. The Jews expected the Messiah to be a conqueror and king, ready to deliver them from the hands of the Romans. Instead, Jesus was the Prince of Peace, who delivers all creation from the bonds of sin. God's answer to our prayer is always infinitely better than we can hope or perhaps even see in the present moment. And I took great comfort in that thought. True, we still live in a fallen world, ravaged by death, greed, war, corruption. But that doesn't mean that God isn't at work in it, and that he isn't changing things-even if in ways we cannot see yet. 2) Fear & the Other
I struggle during conferences like the one I attended last week, because nearly every story of persecution has to do with the struggle between Islam and Christianity. What's the issue, that's the story of the persecuted Church, isn't it? you may ask. Well, you aren't wrong. But I struggle because often we conclude that Islam must be stamped out if Christianity is to survive. My experience of Islam, however, has been nothing like this situation. Over the years, as I've gotten to know Muslim friends and professors, never once have a I felt that they wished to convert me much less wanted to turn the US into an Islamic state. Even in my studies of Islam and its influence in the West, though I recognise many of the problems that can exist, I could not conclude that either Islam or Christianity must supersede the other. I cannot deny the fact that most of the religious persecution in the world are Christian communities by Muslim ones. And yet, like every religious conflict in history--even those within the Christian tradition itself--it seems to me that this conflict is as much rooted in power as it is in religion, if not more.
I have no answers for this conflict. I have no easy solution for the persecuted church. Instead, I only have more questions. I wonder at the effectiveness of continuing to speak of Islam with fear and suspicion. Does fear and anger ever bring about peace? Is there a better way to support our brothers and sisters suffering persecution other than creating an even deeper divide between Islam and Christianity? 3) We're All In This Together
Like everyone's favourite pop culture school community, I too had a profound realisation of how connected and involved we all are to each other. This came not from the conference itself, but from an experience with a friend during the event. Chris is the assistant upstairs and the other under 30 year old dependably in the office each day, and between a shared interest in theology, politics, and laughter, we've become fast friends. Then, while we were at the conference, we heard the news about the political unrest in Zimbabwe. Like most people, my initial reaction was My goodness, how awful, but I didn't feel it on a great personal level. That is, not until I talked to Chris. Turns out Chris' wife is from Zimbabwe, and then, quite suddenly, through my friendship with Chris and hence my concern for his wife, I felt keenly for the nation of Zimbabwe. Suddenly, it wasn't some random country halfway around the world, a statistic, a point on a map. It was a real place, where real people with real lives and real hopes lived.
The following Sunday, at church, the vicar asked each of us to silently pray for one or two nations, and my first thought was of Chris and his wife and of all the people of Zimbabwe. This crisis now mattered to me personally. I can't help but think that if more of us had those personal connections beyond our borders, that the news would cease being water fountain chatter and become a real cause to cry out to the Lord, to lift up our brothers and sisters around the world. Maybe we could all learn, like the great Disney Channel Original Movie says, that We're All In This Together.
I honestly don't know how many weddings I've attended in my life...PK problems I suppose. But its been family, family friends, college friends, camp friends, childhood friends. The marriage liturgy is familiar and comforting. But something hit me that Saturday afternoon that I wasn't expecting. Something new. As the Catholic priest spoke to Alexis and Mark about the nature of love and marriage, and how their union of love is representative of the love Christ has for the Church, I felt a catch in my throat. Alexis and Mark sat directly in front of me, and I saw how they looked at each other, really saw, as if for the first time. I realized that I knew what the love of a sister meant, the love of a daughter, the love of a friend. And on a factual level, I knew what it meant to be loved by Christ. But the love between Alexis and Mark, the love that poured out of their eyes, was something I did not know. Of all the myriad of passages in the Bible that talk about love, my favorite must be 1 John 4:7-21. In this passage, John outlines how it is through God's love for us, and only through that love, they were able to experience love. The only way we can remotely understand love is through God's love first. 1 John 4:9-10 says "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." So if love is Jesus' coming into the world to sacrifice himself for our sins, then how, in our human frailty, can we begin to understand what that love of God IS? Even if we know the definition of love, how can we even begin to understand it, unless it is through that experience of love. John goes on to say "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:11-12) This, I think, gets to the heart of why marriage is so powerful. In the celebration of marriage, we experience the love of Christ for his Church. The moment that stood out the most powerfully for me was when I stood up in front of the congregation to sing. The tune was Lenard Cohen's Hallelujah, and the lyrics were pulled from scripture about love and the nature of love. I sang about its power, and as I sang, I saw it in my friends sitting in front of me. I saw in Mark and Alexis' parents and families and friends. We all united in love for Mark and Alexis, as they united in love for each other. But this reason that we could gather in that church, hearts full of love, was because Christ loved us first. So as we all felt love for the bride and groom, we also felt the love of Christ. Love is patient, love is kind, protects and trusts, and will always bind two lives in one perfect unity.
When Alexis, one of my closest friends and best friend from grad school, asked me to sing and be in her wedding over a year ago, little did I know that would require me flying back to the US from London of all places! So that is how I found myself last week traveling from London back to the US, for a large Italian-Catholic, Jersey wedding...which happened to be subtly Game of Thrones themed... The trip should have been straight forward enough. Famous last words. I arrived at Gatwick airport at 2pm-ish for my 5:05pm flight, quickly made it through security, and wandered around the airport for a while before heading up to the gate. Then 4:30 came around and passed. And then 5pm. And then 5:15. And we never were invited to board. Realising that I could miss my shuttle from JFK to Newark, where Alexis' parents agreed to pick me up, I quickly had to start thinking about other options. Unfortunately, the later I would arrive in JFK led to shadier and fewer options. Apparently there was a broken valve that caused half the toilets on the plane not to function. They had an engineer from Boeing on the phone however, and were hopeful that the problem would be addressed soon. But soon 5:30 came and went. And 6. Finally, at 6:30, the attendants informed us that the engineer from Boeing was now on their way to the airport and that they would have more information in a couple hours. In other words, plane wouldn't leave for at least 2 more hours and could not at all. At this point, there was no hope of catching my shuttle and doomed me to arrive in the middle of the night to JFK with no where to go. Luckily I could get Norwegian Air on the phone with relative ease, and decided that the 6:45am flight arriving at 9am was much preferred. So back on the Gatwick Express I hopped and back into London I went. It seemed silly to go to sleep if I needed to leave my apartment at 3:15am to arrive to the airport on time via taxi, and I stayed awake, hoping I could sleep on the plane. Spoilers: Not really. Moreover, the in-flight entertainment system wasn't functioning properly, and could only play the same movie on all screens and there was no way to opt out or turn the screen off. I suppose it made sense that the attendants decided to switch that single movie from Braveheart to Minions after 20 minutes, but it was still unfortunate. Instead, I spent the 8 hour flight in a dozing daze, with Minions, Despicable Me, and Ice Age flashing before my eyes. You would think that once I arrived to JFK, my traveling snafus would have reached their limit. I certainly did. But then I waited at the carousel for my luggage. And I waited. And I waited. Finally, I knew it wasn't there. Only after I filed a missing luggage form could I embark on the next leg of the trip: from JFK to NJ. It sounds crazy, but it was a lot easier than I expected. Maybe I'm more used to public transportation now. More likely, though, I was in a sleep deprived trance like state. It was that sleep-deprived adrenaline that kept me going through the day...until I finally went to sleep after 42 hours of being awake. And as soon as I saw Alexis and her fiance, Mark, it was all worth it. I'd do it all over again and more to be there with them for that weekend. Oh, and about my luggage...I did get it back. But not before I spent hours on the phone with Gatwick Airport, JFK Airport, Norwegian Air, and Fed-Ex. Turns out it was left in London, had to be sent to JFK. Then I had to phone back and forth between the 2 airports to track down the reference number from my lost luggage report. Once I knew it was on its way, all I had to do was wait. Of course, then I had to wait for FedEx to drop it off--which naturally happened while everyone was at the rehearsal and they wouldn't leave it without a signature. During the rehearsal dinner I called FedEx to learn that they could A) try to drop it off tomorrow afternoon (when we were all at the wedding), B) change the delivery address to the hotel (but it wouldn't be dropped off till 24 to 48 hours later), or C) pick it up at the center in the area (which was an hour away). I put the Mother of the Bride on the phone. Suddenly FedEx was delivering the luggage to the local Walgreens as a drop off point. I really wish I could say that was the end of the saga. It wasn't. It goes on and on. In the end someone called Bex Delivery dropped off the case to Alexis' parents' mere house hours before the wedding...and something was still scheduled to be dropped off to Walgreens. I still have no idea what that could possibly be. I am happy to say that the trip home was infinitely easier and I returned to London on Monday without incident.
Remember the Chose Your Own Adventure books? You know, the ones where the reader goes through the story, and is presented with a choice that alters the direction of the storyline. This leads to another choice, and another, all leading to a unique ending. The reader could go back through and make entirely different choices for an entirely different outcome or only some different choices and still end up at the same conclusion. Hours and hours of entertainment waiting to happen. Everyday, as I wander through life in the UK, I find myself wondering if life is a Chose Your Own Adventure? Does the church I decide to attend regularly have that kind of lasting impact? Does it matter where I go or what I do after this year is over? Admittedly, this line of thinking can be something of a rabbit warren if considered too long on an underground ride home at night. But it's a very tempting rabbit warren to engage. What prompted such a thought pattern? I suppose it is because every day is filled with choices--from the smallest and most mundane, to what I perceive to be critical life choices. Choices are hard, and they plague my mind whenever I let them--doubting that I am making the right one, wondering if I should make a different one. I find myself slipping into the same trap that I counseled so many of my friends to avoid. Waiting and wishing for the neon sign of what is right and prudent and ultimately God's plan is *rarely* going to happen. And isn't that what faith is? Stepping out into the unknown, not knowing where it will take you, but trusting in the ultimately authority of God over my life? Isn't that what it means that we live by faith and not by sight? Once, I told a friend as she tried to discern what was next in her life that sometimes you have to step out into the unknown, in faith, and then give God room to bless that choice. I try to give myself that advise and I realise more and more how hard that advice is to swallow. Because at the root of this uncertainty is fear. Fear that I am missing out on something that I shouldn't. Fear that I won't meet the people that I will really connect with--the friends that will truly matter. Fear that I won't make the career choices or connections to be all that I can and want to be. Fear that somehow I'll miss what God really has planned for me. The answer to fear in the Bible, again and again, is faith. For we live by faith and not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
So in the end, life is kind of a "Chose Your Own Adventure" in the sense that we do make our own choices, and sometimes we chose more wisely than others. But it isn't too, because eventually all those choices can bring us exactly where we need to be. To exactly the same place. The place God wants us to be. And that place will be good.
Since I was a child, I've always been bothered at how people fawn over clergy, as if they had some kind of blessing they could impart on the rest of us by being near us. Though our spiritual leaders, though members of the apostolic succession, at the end of the day, these priests and bishops are only human--both equally inspiring and flawed. Then I found myself casually standing next to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. ...From Sunday, October 1st till Friday, October 7th, I was at the seat of Anglican tradition: Canterbury Cathedral. This first week in October was the yearly Primates Meeting, the gathering of the heads of each of the 39 provinces of the Anglican Communion. My official title while there, in fact for the entire year, was Communications Assistant. This past week that meant I was responsible for any odd jobs that my boss needed done--from typing up interview notes to putting up signs for press conferences to monitoring the Twittersphere and blogosphere. He kept checking that I wasn't bored, and I constantly reassured him that bored was the furthest thing from what I was feeling. I was at the heart of my religious tradition, facilitating a space for these incredible leaders to meet and pray together, lifting up the of issues facing their provinces: climate change, evangelism, human trafficking to name a few. So that was how I ended up watching the communication team film a video with Presiding Bishop of the US, Michael Curry, and quite suddenly found myself being casually introduced to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. I'm pleased to announce that I saved my momentary freak out until I was out of the room and alone. Silliness aside, there was something deeply profound about this gathering of Anglican leaders. Hailing from across countries and cultures, representing people that couldn't be more different, and these primates demonstrated that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. This isn't to say that we are all the same, or that our differences don't matter. Instead, those differences have no baring on our ability to meet the Living God. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
The meeting was also a time to reconnect with friends and meet some new ones. Every day I earned a new lesson in just how connected I was and am to Anglicans around the globe--whether that was connecting with people from the US Episcopal Church or meeting Primates from around the world. And while my boss was apologetic that he didn't get a chance to properly train me prior to this meeting, I have to say, I think being a part of the Primates Meeting trained in a way that only it could, and it was, perhaps, the most important training of all.
After weeks and even months of waiting, everything is *almost* ready. My visa is *almost* here. My bags are *almost* packed. It's *almost* time for my flight. And now that I'm in the land of *almosts*, it is no longer *almost* time for goodbye. In fact, it is THE time for goodbyes.
UPDATE: Since writing this post, my visa did arrive. So the time of *almosts* is almost up!
After weeks and months of waiting, of filling in paperwork, and of more waiting, it's almost here: my flight to the U.K. I've spent the last week packing all my belonging in boxes, and storing them in my parents' attic--which was a much lengthier process than I had anticipated! Now all that's left is fitting everything I need for the year in two suitcases and a carry on. Crazy, I know.
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Me: Amelia BrownAvid runner & baker, following God's call to year of mission and service work in the Episcopal Church & Anglican Communion. Archives
August 2018
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