May 10, 2012
"There are too many angry peacemakers!" bemoaned a friend of mine during an Evangelical Peacemaking Summit. Everyone laughed, because we all realized the irony of it. Sometimes those who wrestle with injustice and seek peace don't embody the very message they bring. They have the right beliefs and the right actions, but not the right affections. Something is wrong in their hearts.
April 4, 2012
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of North Carolina homeschoolers and then leading them on a tour of their neighborhood mosque. A few minutes before we would go across the street to the mosque, I asked the kids if they had ever been to a mosque and how they were feeling about our pending visit.
April 3, 2012
People like learning from experts. And better yet, experts who not only know their stuff but who give good advice based on personal experiences. As we learn from them and experience for ourselves the truth of what they have to teach, they become more credible. They are teachers we can trust. In Indonesia we have a phrase for people like this: sudah makan banyak garam, which literally means people who "have eaten much salt." People who eat much salt have a lot of life experience and know what they are talking about.
March 8, 2012
This week I made my second-ever visit to a synagogue and for the first time participated in a brit milah, the Jewish circumcision ritual. Rabbi Eric Solomon and Rabbi Jenny Solomon, of Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh, recently welcomed their son into the world, and they honored me immensely by inviting me to join other friends and family at the ceremony.
March 6, 2012
No tomorrow? This morning on the radio I heard a song with the words, "Let your little light shine like there's no tomorrow." It got me wondering: are believers called to live as though there's no tomorrow, or are we called to live towards a better tomorrow? Let me put it like this: are we to live in apocalyptic fear or in resurrection hope? Pessimism, realism, optimism? Is there another option?
February 21, 2012
I have shared an elevator with the Managing Director of the IMF. It's in interesting feeling to exchange a smile with the woman recently gracing the cover of Newsweek magazine with the title, "The Trillion Dollar Woman." In a very real sense, she and her team of economists are given the task of fixing a frighteningly broken world. An economist and a pastor... are we not partners in the same task? A trillion dollar woman and a spirit-filled man?
February 2, 2012
Let me give a gift to all of those burnt-out, disturbed, and anxious peacemakers out there! Here it is: Rest!
January 31, 2012
I lectured at the Bethlehem Bible College (BBC), founded by Bishara Awad, for the three years the Oslo Peace Process was getting underway (1993-1996). For my youth ministry courses, I required students to make several visits to the YMCA Rehabilitation Center in Beit Sahour, the village literally down the hill from Bethlehem (also the traditional site where angels told some shepherds about Jesus’ birth). There, they spent time with Muslim young men who had been shot or tortured by the Israeli military.
January 16, 2012
The word carniceria can be found in shopping malls all over Phoenix. In Spanish, the word means “meat market.” Most of these carnicieria’s are owned by entrepreneurs from a Latin American background. However, there is one not far from my house called Somali Carniceria. It’s a fully functioning store that serves the East African community of East Phoenix. Instead of buying a new sign, the owners adapted the sign that was left behind from a Latino butcher that had formerly rented the space, making a Hispanic-Somali monument to the layered diversity of Phoenix.
January 2, 2012
I read a book last week on mediation and laughed when the author (a lawyer who has mediated over 7000 cases) shared personally. She said that her 90 year old parents still mediate between her and her sisters! Wow, a trained lawyer and veteran mediator still needed the practical help of her parents to mediate conflict with her siblings. Mediation is a profoundly practical and important aspect of peacemaking.
