The Need to Read...and Pray!

German theologian Karl Barth is credited with saying that Christians should read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. In a 1963 interview with Time magazine during the cold war, Barth said, "News media is important. I always pray for the poor, the sick, journalists, authorities of the state and the church.  However, as a theologian, I should never be formed by the world around me - neither East nor West. I should make my vocation to show both East and West that we can live without a clash. Where the peace of God is proclaimed, peace on earth is implicit."

My work at World Relief Nashville has changed the way I read news media of today, internet and online news services.  As I meet people from Burma, Nepal, Eritrea, and Somalia, I am eager to learn about the countries from which they come. Recalling this quote of Barth's, I decided that each week of my internship, I will read and pray about the news of the UN refugee agency. Today there was a story about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Somalia and how it has forced almost 320,000 Somalis to flee their country so far this year. While the majority of Somalis seek refuge in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, many Somalis head northwards to embark on a dangerous sea journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen. This year 20,000 Somalis have arrived in Yemen's reception centres bringing with them stories of drought, famine, war and slavery that caused them to flee Somalia.

And so I pray this news with this prayer,

O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, today I pray for Somalis who have been uprooted from their homes. I pray for all those who must flee for their lives, who leave their land and culture often to live apart from their families.  I mourn their losses of dignity, community, resources and employment. I especially ask that you be with the women and children who are the majority of those displaced. Please be with those women who have been assaulted and brutalized on their journey and those who have lost children to sickness and hunger.  I pray for the Somalis who even though they survive the journey to Kenya, Ethiopa, and Yemen, their lives are scarred by danger, war, exploitation, drought, famine and desperate poverty.  God of mercy and compassion, you promise to meet us on the way and abide with us always. Help World Relief to stand with the most vulnerable, our sisters and brothers who simply desire a chance to survive and prosper in their home countries.  When there is no such chance or when it is painfully slow in coming, help us inspire and guide your church to act with compassion, care and commitment so as to be the tent in which all your children can be restored to your loving presence and safe shelter.  Amen.

Caren is a student at Vanderbilt University Divinity School currently interning with World Relief Nashville for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Motivated by Love

I have heard it said that theology is worrying about what God is worrying about when God wakes up in the morning.  A simple question in Exodus always serves to remind me what God worries about: "This cloak of [your neighbor's] is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If your neighbor cries out to me, I will hear  him; for I am compassionate.” (Exodus 22: 26-27)

As a Christian, I must be worried about my neighbors, where they will sleep, how they will cover themselves, and from where they will receive their daily bread and drink.  I am called to be compassionate as God is compassionate. To be compassionate means to “feel with” God and neighbor. As a Christian, I have been taught and believe that acceptance of God’s merciful love requires that I commit myself to others.  Acceptance of the gift of life from God motivates me to work for justice, peace, happiness and life for all God’s children. This was a major factor in my decision to intern this year at World Relief.  It is part of my personal commitment to others, to my neighbors, born out of the gracious gift of God’s love for the world.

In my work at World Relief teaching English, I find myself “feeling with” the English students what it must be like to come to a new country, learn a foreign language as an adult, be immersed in a strange culture, to weep for family members left behind, to worry about where they will sleep and what they will eat.  I have discovered that in this “feeling with” my neighbors, especially as it spills over into my prayer life, I am lead to a new and deeper encounter with God.  Being united to my neighbors in their joys and sufferings, in the challenges of a new life in a strange land creates anew in me a “thirst and hunger” for God.

I can also see now that it wasn’t only my theology--my way of believing and thinking about God--nor was it merely human compassion that empowered me to start and to hopefully one day complete this journey. All along the way God has been, is and will be with me and also with my neighbors, the newly-arrived individuals to this country. God is guiding all of us, leading us toward compassionate encounters with one another that in turn serve to lead us anew to God, the source and the summit of our journey.  Praise be to God.

Caren is a student at Vanderbilt University Divinity School currently interning with World Relief Nashville for the 2011-2012 academic year.

True Hospitality

“Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received.”

- Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict:  A Spirituality for the 21^st Century

Hospitality is one of the highest forms of devotion.  Receiving poor people and pilgrims with great care and concern is an essential part of Christian worship.  As such, hospitality must be total and complete. It is more than providing food and shelter; it is recognizing another as family, as brother and sister in Christ.  In all humility, we are to convey with our whole selves, “You are welcome here. Please come in.  You are the Christ for us in this moment.”

On Friday, I went to check on some Bhutanese-Nepali friends who arrived a few weeks ago from Nepal. When they opened the door for me, they folded their hands, bowed their heads and greeted me by saying, “Namaste.” Chittester says that in India, “Namaste means I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.  I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, we are as one.”

In their humble home, I received the gifts of hospitality, presence and service. They made a space for me to sit on the sofa and gave me a cold drink.  A family member walked next door to find a neighbor to interpret so they could tell me about their first few weeks in Nashville. One of the children brought a puzzle over to where I was sitting and invited me to put it together with her. They taught me how to say some words in Nepalese, and we all laughed together as I tried to remember and pronounce them correctly.

I learned a couple of things that day about hospitality. One is that in welcoming and receiving Christ in the poor and the pilgrims, I am also welcomed and received as Christ by them. True Christian hospitality is more than simply receiving the gift of Christ in the poor; it is also a return of the gift.  It is to recognize and honor the love, light, truth and peace of the Divine in one another.

The other thing I learned about hospitality from my Bhutanese-Nepali friends is that it isn’t so much what one does for others as it is the way in which one does it. One can merely give another food and drink or one can give it in the spirit of fellowship and communion.  One can simply offer a guest the comforts of the house or one can take the time to share life’s joys with them. Hospitality is not simply receiving the stranger; it is welcoming a brother or sister home.

Caren is a student at Vanderbilt University Divinity School currently interning with World Relief Nashville for the 2011-2012 academic year.