Report On May Trip to Ethiopia

Why do I go to Ethiopia? It’s the children.

There are ten’s of thousands of children suffering from malnutrition and with diseases to which they were left vulnerable, because their autoimmune systems have shut down.

Holding a 2 yr-old child who is barely the size of a newborn and whose skin is falling off her boney body tears at me.  

Walking onto a compound filled with scores of babies who are listless, unable to even hold their heads up, and too weak to cry, is heartbreaking. No matter how many times I have done this over the years, it never seems to prepare me for these encounters.

Every distribution center I walk to, before I even lay eyes on the people, I hear the murmuring of weeping mothers, smell the diseases, and hits me in the gut: Children are suffering and dying.

What always holds me together is the very next thought: And we are here to stop this from happening.

This last trip, while kneeling down beside a weeping mother who is begging me to hold her suffering baby, the smell of the child’s disease and decay floods into my lungs so quickly that I instinctively cup my hand over my nose and mouth, and will myself to not puke.  The smell and taste stay with me all day. This mother and child … this is why we are here.

As is our mission, we went to four villages in the Sidamo Zone where the people are receiving no aid or relief from any charity, agency, or ministry.  You’d think after decades of aid coming into this nation that there wouldn’t be any such places, but you’d be wrong: 80% of the children here in Ethiopia who are undernourished and suffering with related pathologies go untreated.

These children need our help. Thanks to your care and support, we were able to distribute 30 tons of wheat to four villages, while I was there. Our team distributed another 60 tons of wheat, the week after I left.

How do we decide who receives a bushel of wheat? Dr Henoc (pictured above) and his teams visit these villages before hand so as to ascertain who are the most needy: mothers who are so malnourished they cannot nurse their newborns and families with children who are the most severely malnourished and diseased.

And what will they do with this wheat? They make a loaf of bread that, out there, constitutes a full meal for a family of seven.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

Jesus' Parable of the Talents and Income Inequality

The power to tax is the power to destroy.  -Daniel Webster

The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good.  –Jonah Goldberg

In Jesus’ Parable of the Talents he tells the story of a master who is about to take off on a long trip. The master sits down with three of his servants to delegate responsibilities. He gives one servant $5,000, another $3,000, and the third gets $1,000: “each according to his abilities.” Servants Number One and Two doubles their master’s investment and, upon the master’s return, were made partners in his business. Servant Number Three, having buried his master’s money in the ground, is castigated for not at least having the wisdom to put the money into a savings account. The master kicks him out and casts him off, but not before taking his $1,000 and giving it to Servant Number One. (Matthew 25)

Yes, Christ’s parable is about far more than money and speaks to eternal realities. But stick with me here because this Parable can help cast some light on the realities of a Socialistic (Power concentrated in the State) v a Free Market Economy (Power dispersed): the latter being largely based on the presupposition of private property and one of God’s Big Ten: Thou. Shalt. Not. Steal. This Commandment applies to individuals and to Governments.

It is a fact of life that we each come into this world with differing gifts and opportunities for investing those gifts for our “master.” Such things are in God’s hand’s alone. It is a waste of breath and a demonstration of a severe lack of gratitude for me to whine to God, begging Him for the gifts and opportunities of another. What is in my hands, however, is what I will do with the opportunities He gives me for investing my gifts for His sake.

Many people today don’t like the Almighty’s arrangement. So if God won’t be manipulated by our bellyaching about what we are “entitled to” then maybe the State will have pity on us. But, however god-like the State seeks to become, it cannot relegate or redistribute gifts, capacities, opportunities, character, or wisdom. What it can do, however, is a reverse on the Parable of the Talents: it can, through a confiscatory tax-system, take from the two faithful servants and give to the servant who choose to bury his gifts in the ground. This is called “income redistribution” for the sake of “income equality.”

You may call this “fair” or even “compassionate.”  I call it an infringement upon my stewardship before God, an injustice, and thievery. The men and women who founded this nation would say the same. *

On the other hand, if a politician wants the authority to arbitrarily define Fair Profits, Just Wages, and Social Sensitivity, and to secure his political party’s base, this is a most awesome model. Come on now: who doesn’t like to see the State as Robin Hood stealing from the greedy rich and passing it out to the poor? “You got my vote!” And if some unenlightened business owners speak out against such foolishness, well then the State can punish or destroy their businesses with taxes, fines, and increased regulations. Need the votes of more Servant Number Threes? Increase taxes so as to increase social programs. Win. Win. Win.

Of course, if you own a business in the Servant Number One category, you can collude with the State (“Master”) to excuse you from paying the taxes Servant Number Two’s business is most assuredly going to pay and, thereby, rid yourself of your competition. And to get this spiffy deal all you have to do is donate huge sums of money to the appropriate politicians and their political party. “Wow, Monte, where do I sign up?” “It’s easy. Dial 1-538-442-8426. That’s 1-538-442-8426 or just remember: 1-Leviathan.”

“But Monte.  What does this all have to do with the poor?” Nothing. It has always been about the State’s insatiable thirst for ever-increasing control and power, never about the poor or the “disadvantaged.” When a politician starts waxing eloquent about the compassionate and fair redistribution of wealth or increased taxation to redress some aggrieved identity group (“social justice”), or of how compassionate it is for the State to begin managing our medical insurance and relationships with our doctors, what you are most always hearing is a Machiavellian obfuscation that has nothing to do with the poor, with justice, or with compassion: only power.

You still doubt me? Then ask yourself this:

If the State’s intent for taking from Servants One and Two and giving to Servant Number Three is that there will be income equality (something no State has ever achieved in all of history) but the results—over a period of seventy-five years here in the US—have been an ever-increasing number of Servant Number Threes, don’t you think that any sane person with even a double-digit IQ would see that redistribution is not working? Wouldn’t people who truly cared for the poor want to ditch these policies and try something else, anything else? Sure they would: if that was their intention.

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* I am not suggesting that all taxes are evil. But when you see a State requiring more from its citizens than God does from His (10%) you have to admit that there is a distinct possibility that it is developing a Messianic Complex.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

The Gracelessness of Bitterness

...every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. -John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. -Hebrews 12.15

Bitterness is the spawn of anger and resentment. It is God-defying and Grace-denying. Bitterness demands that the person who committed the injustice against me be cast into the Prison of Rejection until they have paid every penny owed me, with interest.

He cheated me/ failed me/ abused me/ knifed me in the back

She abandoned me/ lied about me/ kicked me when I was down

They rejected me/ kept me from getting the promotion/ laughed at me

“You could have prevented this”/ “If only you would have…”

It’s one thing to be disappointed or even angry over an injustice. Anger can propel us forward and get us up on our feet to stand for what is True, Just, and Good. But once we allow anger to begin using us we have opened the doors of our souls to resentment, which is soon followed by bitterness. This is why St Paul said, “In your anger, do not sin.” Once anger is in the driver’s seat of our emotions there is no way not to sin: to lash out in cruelty, to harbor feelings of resentment, to be infected with bitterness.

My experience is that we usually handle the unexpected disappointments, upsets, and perceived injustices far better than the daily load of tolerable ones. That we were robbed of a happy childhood by clueless parents is endured because “It wasn’t their fault, such-is-life, and I need to move on.” The fact that we have been reciting this same sentence for 20 years says that we really have never moved on. So, all these years, the tolerated disappointment and its accompanying low-grade resentment have been draining our souls of life, love, and joy—of God’s grace for us—and slowly but surely bitterness began seasoning our every experience.

Paul, again: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor (shouting matches) and slander (defamation, spoken or written) be put away from you, along with all malice (the desire to cause harm).” I think the fact that these breaches of the laws of love are placed together is very telling. They all feed upon each other, each egging the other on.

Gratefully, he tells us how to resist or, if need be, to rid ourselves of these debasing attitudes and diseased behaviors.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” “But I have every right to…” “Didn’t you see what she did?” “Do you know what he cost me?”  “I deserved …” “They didn’t do what they promised to.” “He needs to pay…” All swallowed up in: Uh, excuse me. Let’s go back over all that God in Christ has forgiven you. Now. Go do for others what He did for you.

Forgiving others means that we tear up the IOUs we are holding against them

Forgiving others keeps us from bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander, and malice

Forgiving others keeps our souls open to God’s grace and healing

Forgiving others has within it the memory of all that we were forgiven

CS Lewis wrote, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”  True enough. However, isn’t it interesting that when we are the ones standing in need of forgiveness it is, once again, a lovely idea? But Christ’s lovely idea of forgiveness insists that we pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Bitter people are graceless because they cannot receive what they will not give.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

Knights of the Round Table, Not Lone Rangers

Arthur never heard speak of a knight in praise but he caused him to be numbered of his household … Because of these noble lords about his hall, of whom each knight pained himself to be the hardiest champion and none would count him the least praiseworthy, Arthur made the Round Table…It was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat, their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade.  Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board, and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread.

Roman de Brut, Wace

The Fellowship consists of men and women with whom we join ourselves on a psychological and spiritual level. These aren’t buddies with whom we hang out or great guys we enjoy debating from time to time. These are the men and women with whom we choose to share our hearts, minds, wisdom, talents, and lives. These people are our Band of Brothers, the Knights of our Round Table. The question that demands our attention, intelligence, and wisdom is – Who’s Who? Who sits at this Table?

Arthur never heard speak of a knight in praise but caused him to be numbered of his household. Arthur wasn’t looking for Knights with potential. He sought Knights whose performance was already so stellar that word had spread throughout his realm of their prowess and chivalry. The Fellowship should consist of people who inspire us to be a better man or woman. We need people who can see through our shticks and call us out. We need fellows whose integrity has grown to such depths we can trust them to walk around in our heads and hearts.

This Band of Brothers is where all the New Testament’s “one another’s” are worked out: love one another, serve one another, walk in the light with one another, confess your sins to one another, forgive one another, honor others above yourself, build one another up in love. This doesn’t happen looking at the back of someone’s head in church but face to face at the Round Table.

Of whom each knight pained himself to be the hardiest champion and none would count him the least praiseworthy. The knights we are looking for are “getting it done,” making a difference, and seeking to make their visions a reality in their worlds.  The Fellowship is there to “provoke one another to love and good deeds.” The fellowship we enjoy is to strengthen us for the battles we are fighting. It is not a place where we go to hide from the world and feel good about our passivity. This is where “iron sharpens iron,” where our gifts, talents, and skills are sharpened for battle.

It was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat, their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade.  Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board.  Here, in this Fellowship, we are peers. This is where no one pulls rank or hides behind his title whenever a painful conversation arises he wants to quash.

Sir Bedevere: Oi, Lancelot, what’s up with those late night walks with Guinevere?

Sir Lancelot: Knave! Thou darest to challenge the King’s Champion?

Sir Bedevere: Yeah, verily. And Lance. Stop acting like you are about to fill a vacancy in the Trinity.

And none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread. When Arthur called the knights, they showed up. These knights had a Code of Chivalry to which they were accountable. The Fellowship is where we give an accounting of our Quests, of how we are living out The Code, of how many damsels were saved and dragons sleighed. And there is nothing like a table loaded with meat and mead to help the conversation keep flowing.

I get it. Fellowships are scary because they require openness, honesty, vulnerability, and commitment. Yet, it is only within such relationships that we discover and develop our real strengths and deal with our weaknesses. It is with your fellow knights where you learn how love behaves. It is here where you are built up in love and sent back out on your Quests with increased strength and wisdom. If you want real scary, cheat your self out of such relationships and then go seek to be a demonstration of God’s love to the world around you. Believe me: scary is seeking to be the Lone Ranger when the Lord of the Kingdom has called us to be Knights of the Round Table.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

The Fellowship

Arthur never heard speak of a knight in praise but he caused him to be numbered of his household … Because of these noble lords about his hall, of whom each knight pained himself to be the hardiest champion and none would count him the least praiseworthy, Arthur made the Round Table…It was ordained of Arthur that when his fair fellowship sat to meat, their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade.  Thus no man could boast that he was exalted above his fellow, for all alike were gathered round the board, and none was alien at the breaking of Arthur’s bread.

Roman de Brut, Wace

For thousands of years storytellers have told us of mythic Legendary Leaders and their bands, their fellows, their friends, and their covenant brothers. Such stories have always resonated with us. 

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

Robin Hood and his Merry Men

The Three Musketeers

Frodo and his eight fellow travelers

Harry Potter and the ever present Ron and Hermione

There is something about the metaphor of a band of brothers that we intuit as a relationship that would bring immeasurable joy. It isn’t just a case of seeing pragmatic reality—we need fellow soldiers if we are going take this hill, a team to build this business—but a deep sense of psychological necessity.

We were not created to be alone and go it alone. And we know it.

Even the cynics who scoff at such relationships as childish Fairy Tales are betrayed by their fear, anger, and bitterness. “It should have been so, I needed it to be so, but was betrayed and will never allow myself to go there again. People are idiots.” Their cynicism belies a deep-seated pain over not experiencing what their hearts so desperately needed.

We long to belong. We wonder what it would be like to know that we know that he has our back, that she will get in our face if we are about to walk over a cliff, that they will ride to our defense. We need to be loved and to love. We need the gifts, skills, wisdom, and light of others, as they need ours. We need others to help us realize our visions.

The Fellowship of a Round Table

When we read stories such as that of King Arthur and his knights, what is it that makes such “fellowships” possible? How does the process work? What has to Be There for this to become what it is our hearts long for and need?

I believe that such fellowships are rooted in a commonality of vision and our core beliefs and principles, as well as a mutuality of our sense of life. The more these all align, the deeper the potential for true fellowship. How many of our past relationships never developed into what we longed for or fell apart because there was a lack of alignment on these core elements? Without casting aspersion on anyone and believing the best of all, just how deep of a fellowship can we have with people whose visions and core beliefs are not merely different but are actually opposed to each other? Come on. The only way for Arthur and Mordred to have fellowship is for one of them to convert.

Fellowship, however, is more than acknowledging that we have the same beliefs.. Fellowship involves sharing, participating, and contributing. I have been in churches, communities, associations, clubs, and even families that had a broad base of commonality. However, these knights were not seeking to establish a vision in reality and were not sharing and participating in each other’s lives. They simply sat at the Round Table staring at each other, maybe enjoying a beer together from time to time, and then each going out to live their separate lives. This is not a sign that such brotherhoods are a fantasy but a demonstration of people refusing to actually fellowship.

The kind of relationships we long for and need don’t just happen. We aren’t going to wake up one morning and magically find our selves sitting at a Round Table with fellow knights discussing strategies for defeating the Saxons and establishing Camelot. Fellowships are forged over time with great effort, ongoing demonstrations of love and support, and tested by battle after battle, both internally to maintain relational integrity and externally to realize our visions.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

The Hall of Mirrors

The Christian faith is a communal faith, whereby we not only commune with God but also with those whose souls are also united to Christ. We are to love one another, serve one another, confess our failures to one another, forgive one another, celebrate our victories with one another, provoke one another to love and good deeds, and take joy in honoring others above ourselves. Phew. That’s a whole lot of stuff that we are to be doing with and for one another.

St John said that our love for God would be seen in how we love each other. You say that you are walking in the light of God’s Truth, then that will be seen in doing the same with others. He says that his life is all about serving God. That will be proven by how he serves others. She professes that she honors God and walks humbly before Him. Then thus it shall be so toward others. Others are the Mirrors of Reality. And there’s the rub.

If we want to tell ourselves and others one thing while doing the opposite, then we either have to change or we have to get rid of the mirrors.

Mirrors of Reality

Wisdom declares that those who isolate themselves are seeking their own desires. (Proverbs 18.1) I don’t want what you would reflect about me anywhere near my world. Why: because I want what I want and do not wish to be challenged. I want to believe I am getting along fairly well with my chosen way of being in life. I want to be comforted by feeling all the “right things” toward others without my actual behaviors being challenged by any mirrors. I want to go my own way while pretending to be following after God. Mirrors allow no such pretense.

So.

We prefer churches filled with isolationists whose members have unspoken agreements with one another to keep all mirrors covered.

We only choose “friends” who are muddy mirrors.

If a clean and true mirror somehow finds its way into our world, we will spew forth a great fog, remind everyone that we ALL “see through a glass darkly,” and remove said mirror from our world during whatever chaos we can create.

And we will do this while telling ourselves stories of how we are being true to God, to ourselves, to Truth, and to wisdom. Win-win! I get to hold on to my secret desires (willfulness, greed, covetousness, lust, vanity, or what-have-you) all while professing a devout love for God and others because I have removed all mirrors from the halls of my world. What is so bizarre is that we will then cry out to God regarding our loneliness and how so many blessings promised us in scriptures are nowhere to be found in our lives. Well, go figure.

We were not created to be alone, not meant to go on our Quests, alone. St Paul told us that there are individuals with whom God wants us to be joined where there is a constant giving and receiving of life. (Ephesians 4.16) It is here where all the “one another” stuff mentioned in the opening paragraph is lived out. Don’t forsake these people, don’t ignore what they are mirroring back to you about your reality, for it is in these relationships where we are strengthened for our Quests and built up in love.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

The Despair of An Empty Soul

What the eyes see is better than what the soul desires. This too is futility and a striving after wind. -Ecclesiastes 6.9

Here in Ecclesiastes 6 Solomon has been holding forth on the despair of the rich who are never satisfied with what they possess. What’s the point of it all? If you can’t be satisfied and everything you own is going to fall into someone else’s hands after you die anyway, then “Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity…”  

There is a despair that people live with that is the result of seeing the world as an end in and of itself. Like Solomon in his Ecclesiastes days, they seek love, they traverse their worlds in search of beauty, they are successful in their labors, they deny themselves nothing, and yet they live with despair because nothing and no one fills the void in their souls. What they don’t understand is that the problem isn’t a lack of stuff or people to love but a failure of vision.

For these people all there is, is “life under the sun.” (Solomon) For them, all remains meaningless and futile unless or until they see life above the sun: see that the God of creation and life is the be all and end all of our existence, see that creation, love, beauty, and even our labors, are avenues by which we are to commune with God. If we refuse to see the love of God behind and through the love of others, if we cannot see the beauty of God that is shining through a work of art, if we fail to see the glory of God in a magnificent sunset, we are inevitably left empty, dissatisfied, and, ultimately, in despair.

Christians know this intellectually yet often forget it in practice and so live with discontent and the despair of an unbeliever. Their lives are filled with love, beauty, and a roof over their heads and food for their stomachs, but it is not enough, it is never enough, because they too fail to see God in all of these blessings. They do not commune with the God whose life is pulsating through these gifts and, therefore, are using these blessings as ends rather than means to the end: communion with God. 

How often do we experience despair because we are not grateful for what our eyes see but are only focused on what our souls desire? We crave more stuff, more love, more beauty, more of something, anything, please!! Why? What good does it do us if we are not grateful for what we do see, experience, and possess, in this moment? If I cannot commune with God right now through all of these gifts He has already sent me, what difference will ten more gifts make in my life? 

How many times do we rail against our present situations because of something we do not or cannot have, all while ignoring what God has sent us, has arranged for our good? And so we are left feeding on despair, while ignoring all the wonders, beauty, and other expressions of God’s Love and Life that fill our worlds and could fill our souls, if we would but choose to see the Gift Giver whose presence is in, around, and through, all that He has given us.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014