Garden

I think we have the best compost heap I have had in 20 years of composting. We pulled two loads out of it this spring. The first one was stuff that had been going for about a year, so no surprise that something was in there. The second load came when had made a sifter and could get more stuff than what we could eyeball. About three weeks ago, I added fresh grass clippings and turned it. This past weekend, we mowed and added new grass clippings, turning it. I noticed that there is a lot more stuff that is finished or nearly so. At this rate, we’ll probably get about half a 5-gallon bucket every week.

And now (5 days after I wrote the above paragraph) I checked the heap, and it is on fire! Steam comes out of it when you move it a bit. And it doesn’t stink, so it has hit the sweet spot where the bacterial decomposition is raging. I stuck my meat thermometer in (not the good one you gave me, mom, the one I got at Kroger), and it read 130 degrees, and that’s just about four inches in. So at the core, it’s probably at that nice 160.

Miguel Mazariegos delivered the dirt for our raised beds in the backyard, so we’re ready for summer planting.

Jessie’s grandmother gave us about 10 sweet potatoes to start plants from. Each one is producing ten or more plants, so we’ll have lots of sweet potatoes. These are an old variety handed down for at least 5 generations, grown from “seed” potatoes stored under the bed each year. So I guess they’re ours to keep passing on.

Jim Embry brought some nice greens by to transplant. It’s going to be a good year in the garden, that’s for sure!

Todd Clark plowed the ground at Andover. We have about 17,000 square feet there. It is going to take all of us working hard! But the prize is rich! So many people to feed and so much good food!

Ica Sue

Last week was me and Ica’s first anniversary. In some ways, it seems longer than a year, it seems we have known each other a lot longer than perhaps we really have.

There’s a lot of things I could say about her. Here’s what I particularly treasure.

She loves Jesus more than she loves me. This is absolutely the only thing that makes it work. If we didn’t love Jesus more than we love each other, it would be a pitiful, paltry love. Sure, it might be good at times—the best human love can be. But then it would also be the worst human love can be. We’ll take Jesus and His love.

On our wedding night, she was cool with the boys wanting all of us to sleep in the living room, watching t.v. all night. They said it was her “sleepover.” I think most folks thought we were nuts about that. Her comment about coming into our lives was that she knew the Bible called her to take care of widows and orphans, she just didn’t think that was going to mean marriage!

She is preternaturally strong for someone so small. This really helps when you need to move a fridge or furniture. Or when you have to pack a lot of lumber. I call her “my mule.” Sadly for her, this has spread around…

She likes being in the garden. Maybe likes it more than I do, so there’s no conflict about working in the garden all day Saturdays and then most evenings, too.

She has a heart for people who need Jesus.

She can cook some really good potatoes.

She is so pretty, and has this air about her that brings a lot of joy into our house, like a fresh breeze, and that sure was needed.

John says:

She’s funny
She has a nice grandma
I like her green beans
I like the way her nose looks like one of those skateboard ramps
She wants to grow a garden and I want to grow a garden, so we have something in common
I like how she likes to listen to Marty Stuart

Joe says:

She’s nice
She’s cute
She’s cool
I play games with her
I feel happy because she loves me

New Pentecost

Ok, you’ve heard this story before (or maybe you haven’t) and now there’s a twist. Or rather an intrusion of the Holy Spirit.

I took Russian in college. Not proficient, just a bit of conversation.

In 96, I go to Estonia, where maybe 40% are ethnic Russians.

I get back from that mission trip all jacked up. I quit grad school and head off to be a preacher.

Maybe 2 months after the trip, I saw a woman in the UK library, looking lost not getting any help. I could tell right away she was Russian. She is so happy to get some help and have someone to talk to, she takes m home! I meet he husband, kids, and parents who live wth her. Her dad s a great tenor and she is pianist. They give me an impromptu concert. She lived in an apt complex where waves of refugees have settled (Africans are there now). There were Russians all over the place.

I brought this to the attention of the Methodist leadership. We need a Russian speaking pastor. But it was not on anyone’s radars screen, and I could not really articulate the plan that I see now.

But I made a vow—if the Lord placed a people group in my path, I would do what I could to learn the language, and connect with their home people and start churches.

8 years later, I am in the Ville. Not even a week. My dad buys me a suit. The tailor is Ukrainian. I meet a Ukrainian in the Post Office. I took me a few weeks, but I finally figured it out! I started learning Ukrainian. But then, church leadership did not think this was a very good use of my time.

I was pretty upset about it. I wondered, “Hey wait a minute, God! Doors open and then slam shut!”

I get to Lexington, The Rock, and I had a lot to learn to keep up. And then, the Congolese come! Ok, Lord, is this it? For one reason or another, that door has closed to—at least to going over to Congo. We still have a strong ministry with them here.

So there has been a lot of soul searching. What is happening? Have I missed the boat? Is this about me?

I have pointed out before that we are in a new Pentecost. America is STILL a land full of churches. And people are coming here from all over the world. If we will reach out in ministry, we can form bonds that will allow us to do effective mission work in their home countries. But that means we will have to break out of a lot of ways we do things. Language and culture are the big issue we face, not contemporary or traditional worship. And then, too, we will actually have to be evangelistic. There can’t be any of this wishy washy crap about Jesus is A way or the way for me, but you find your own path. There may only be a very small number of churches that can pull this off. But the prize for those that do is huge: feeling the rush of the Spirit as it spreads across the earth, convicting the world of sin and bringing the world into all truth.

Ok, so it’s Saturday night. The Congolese worship service is humming. Friday night I met a fellow pastor, Leopold. We had a prayer meeting in my office because we find we have so much in common. He is from Cameroon. But he planted churches in… Russia. It’s an amazing story I’ll tell later. The kicker is he works with a Russian church here in Lexington, the daughter church of a Ukrainian church in Versailles, KY.

They are looking for a place to worship. We are going to see if there is anyway that can be part of what we’re doing, work with us, worship in our sanctuary.

I guess what kills me is that 13 years ago, we should have had a Russian-speaking Methodist Church. How many more opportunities are we going to miss? I mean, please. A man from Cameroon comes to the US to help lead a Russian congregation?

Can you imagine the Holy Spirit freak-out? White Americans, African-Americans, Africans, Hispanics, Russians. And y’all, this is Kentucky. Can you imagine what is happening in New York, Chicago and San Francisco?

So while we’re at the concert, I get an invitation to preach at the Russian church, and an invitation to be the preacher for the Congolese Evangelistic Association’s annual retreat, in Chicago. I am totally humbled, and I take all this as the highest honor from God. I left the richest church in Kentucky Methodism to come to the poorest, and am called to preach the irresistible Pentecost to the invisible participants in this Holy Spirit mystery.

Cold Night

We have about 600 plants in a greenhouse--mostly maters and peppers, a few cabbages, some broccoli and onions. Those last 3 are ok in cool weather. Maters and peppers not so much. But it is a lot of plants to drag back into the house. The forecast was it would get into the upper 30s. This was crunch time, because after a cool and cloudy day, we had doubts that the greenhouse could keep it close to 50 for the night. Lower than that, tomatoes and peppers hate life.

Well, Bob McKinley mentioned that we could try candles in a coffee can. Thta was a blast from the past. When I was a kid in germany, you kept a coffee can with some sand in it in your car. If you were stranded in a winter storm, you put a candle in it and lit it. The light reflecting off the can trapped heat and radiated it. It was a crude oven.

Well, it's hard to find coffee cans-- we had a plastic one, no dice, and I was not going to buy a few cans of coffee just for the can. Ica remembered some galvanized tubs we had. So we dug them out, raided a bunch of candles, and voila.

I didn't sleep much last night, worrying if it would be ok. I checked them about an hour ago and the plants are doing great. I think we can pass thru any cold spells.

Watch, in two weeks I will be back writing about how I have had to handle the opposite problem-- the greenhouse being too hot. I hope this crazy weather settles down and we can just get them in the ground!

Clarification

A friend who knows me pretty well said this by way of introducing a comment: "I know you don't like him, but Jean Vanier says..."

So I suspect other folks who know me think I don't like Vanier. But I do. What I don't like is people who read his books, take a class or write a paper, and start yammering about "community." Because invariably they are in the very place he warns against: self-indulgence. Community begins to mean "the gang's all here!" Or it remains an idea, and talking becomes the same as doing.

I have had to quit using the word community because it has been stripped of all meaning. Unless community now means, "the place where I am comfortable, constantly affirmed, and there's only the people I like."

I like Vanier very much; it's how he gets watered down that I can't stand. And then the ridiculous posturing that comes along with it. That's what I can't stand.

Good Times

We have had some wonderful times in ministry lately.

Sitting around the table on Friday night, we read a little bit from Justin Martyr. It was about Christian worship, and what struck us was how Justin describes that during the service, the wealthy and the willing gave a freewill offering, and that money was used to support widows, orphans, the poor, and strangers. We all thought how freeing it would be for the church if that’s what the offering went to.

One of the guys there asked me about Justin and I was able to hand him a volume of the Apostolic Fathers. He came back to me and held up crossed fingers, “Me and Clement are like this!”

And then Diane Sears asked what do we know about some of the minor characters of the New Testament. So I handed her Jerome’s “Lives of Illustrious Men.”

It’s nice to be able to hand out stuff from the early church.

I did get called to account by the guy who like Clement… It’s Steve McKinney. He pointed out that Chrysostom died in 407 or something and so therefore when I say I don’t read anything past the fourth century… hey I’m just glad people are paying attention.

Friday and Saturday Night we had prayer and praise with the Congolese. For hours they sang and prayed and preached. We had some powerful times in the Lord. I was asked if I would come to their retreat in Chicago. I preached last year for them when it was in Lexington, and I can say I am honored. One of the fellows, Phanuel, came up t me and said, “Thanks for being our Papa.” I thought, it is sad that what little I have done for them has affected them so much as to embrace me and thank me and invite me to preach.

The garden ministry is going along great as well. We planted twenty pounds of potatoes, along with onions, spinach, lettuce, and radishes. We’ll be looking forward to summer gardening, raising food for hungry peoole.

John Gallaher preached Sunday and it was awesome. How good it is to be working with guys like Rosario, Blake, and John.

Sheep

I think I got liberated these past two weeks. I have wrestled with what is called “justice ministry.” It has seemed to me that there is no way to get involved with the mainstream of “justice ministry” without having to be a liberal. Folks, this should not be a shocker, but apparently it is: Jesus is the Savior, not whoever we anoint whenever. When you try to get Jesus to fit an ideology, either you’re in for a rude awakening when He hurts your cherished assumptions and values, or you will create a Jesus to suit yourself and those cherished assumptions and values. There will come a time when, if you are liberal or conservative, Jesus is going to shred your values. And it won’t do you any good to be halfway on board with His plans. Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.

Martina said something about the garden being a justice ministry. I think I myself may have said the same. But I really did not see how. We’re just growing stuff and feeding people. And I was starting to worry: when are people going to think this is bait-and-switch? I mean, I ride an extracycle, and garden like a Mendocino County hippie. The kind of folks who conflate this work with the whole gospel are going to be pretty mad when they find out I’m a Jesus-is-the-only-way preacher. But Martina knows justice, so I had to think about it some more, take it more seriously.

On a long drive from Texas, there was lots of time to think. We were coming through some really pretty parts of North Texas and Arkansas. The grass was coming up, and winter wheat, too. I got to thinking about sheep, and that got me to the 23rd Psalm.

This Psalm has been a favorite of mine. Sometimes we take it for granted, having seen it on a million cards or wall plaques, heard it at funerals, who knows. But it is a very deep poem, worthy of serious study.

When I first became a Christian, Psalm 23 was one of the first things I memorized. I remember telling a professor who helped lead me to Christ that if you could just really “get” Psalm 23, it would take you a long way. I now know that trusting the Good Shepherd will take you all the way.

Anyway, the line that kept coming to me was “Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies.”

Some of what I love about the verse is its honesty; the phrase “in the presence of mine enemies” is an admission that there is evil in the world, that you have enemies. Most times, we’d rather hear (or say) that everything is just great, there’ll be no problems if we follow Christ.

Think about the table the Lord prepares—both a literal table where one can eat in peace even tho surrounded by enemies. And it is a “table” meaning flat high ground where the sheep go for summer pasture. The Lord, the Good Shepherd prepares it by going there in advance of the sheep, rooting out noxious weeds, looking for good water, killing bears in their dens and bringing down wolves on the run with a well-aimed shot.

And it was in this verse that I got a new lease on, a new understanding of, justice. Or maybe it has been brewing for awhile, and Martina just pushed it over the edge. I have been working on a line of thought for a while: what to do about the gentrification that is slouching up North Limestone? It looks good, real good. But it is going to run off the people who live here. The conclusion is that the poor have to have their own place, and it must be the church. It is the table where they can eat in peace in spite of the conspiracy outside.

If the work of the Good Shepherd is to be imitated by the little shepherds, then we, too, must prepare a table in the presence of enemies. We have to be able to carve out a space and time of peace and plenty where now there is only confusion, chaos, threats, lies, and hunger.

The Good Shepherd never asked the wolves if they liked it or not. This was my new lease on justice. Not waiting for politicians to enact justice, not even expecting them to. Not trying to be a player.

The shepherd makes sure the sheep are fed, watered, and safe, in this life and the next.

Happy Birthday!

Today would have been Melissa’s 38th birthday. There’s too much to say, but let me share with you some of what I have been thinking about after going through some memories of her.

What do you do when you think God has let you down?

It feels like He has let you down?

It sure looks like He has let you down?

What do you do?

What do you do when it seems like everyone is, could be, or should be thinking He let you down and yet you still believe and trust?

Are you a fool?

About 5 years ago, me, John, Joseph and Melissa started praying that we could be “preachers together.” We did not mean that in any really definite way—we just thought that as families worked together on the farm that we could be at work in the fields of the Lord. Well, that came to a pretty abrupt halt almost 6 months after we started praying the prayer: Melissa was diagnosed with cancer. About 18 months after we started praying that prayer, things were really grim: bone marrow transplant, graft vs. host disease, lots of weakness. But one day, she had enough strength to go visiting with me and the boys. We were living about 35 miles from the church in those days, so we piled in the car and came down. We visited a particular family, the Mapiganos, refugees from Congo. It was a great day—our boys playing with their boys, Melissa and Noella visiting and really forming a friendship that would have been deep and lasting. And all that day and for many days after, we praised God that we were getting to be “preachers together.” Surely, this was how it was meant to be! She would recover! We would never get back to normal, because we did not want to get back there! Every day would be precious!

Within six months, Sissy was dead. So where was all the preachers together stuff? What to do with two heartbroken boys? How to pick up the pieces? A man asked me, “And after all this, you still believe in God?”

What do you do?

How do I explain that my faith never wavered? That I never thought to myself that God had let us down? How do I explain it when it seems so clear that there is no purpose, no God?

First, Melissa never wavered in her faith. She never asked “why me?” She believed, rightly, that if God healed her, what a testimony. And that if He did not and she died in peace, joy, and victory, then what a testimony. Let me tell you about her resolve. A month or so before she died, it really looked like she was turning a corner, going to make it, all that jazz. But we knew that she was going to be weak, really weak for a long time. And in the end, we knew enough to know that too many things had gone wrong that we needed to go right, and so, in spite of appearances, she might not make it.

One way or the other, I told her, I think maybe I need to leave off preaching for a while. Get a regular job with nights and weekends free, to take care of her and have real time for the boys. If she made it I would be there to help. If she did not, then I would have the long blocks of time for the little guys. She was adamant that this was a stupid idea. “You wouldn’t be happy.” And then she said, “If I don’t make it, I don’t want the boys to see that there was anything that could stop you.”

When you live with someone with that kind of faith, it builds up your own faith. And when the person who is suffering all the things that cause the worldly mind to doubt, and that person does not doubt, then a lot of walls are beat down, strongholds are destroyed, arguments are demolished, and thoughts are taken captive. So the second reason I keep believing, and believe more deeply, is because who am I to question God about how He dealt with Melissa when she never did?

Third, I start to wonder—what are the options if I reject God? There is no God? Trust fate? A universe that is haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent? Regardless of what anyone might say, no one believes that.

Finally, and here is the part where you can call Eastern State and have me committed: He has never let me down. I don’t mean that I have some carefully constructed theology to deal with all contingencies. I don’t mean that grief, pain, and suffering are not real. I don’t mean, finally, that the Cross makes it alright—although it does! I mean that I saw and see clearly and feel intensely that this world will break your heart and strip away everything you have. And if you live in this world, that’s it. But I saw, see, and feel, that even when everything was taken away, everything, I still had Jesus and had more than I ever had.

It’s not that God is absent, doesn’t care, or doesn’t know. He knows it all for what it is. We would curse Him and deny Him—and rightly so-- if He gave us a kingdom and riches that were of this world.

In the end, I could tell you all kinds of things about Melissa—about how pretty, kind, sweet, generous, loving, smart she was—but I have found that in comparison to her faith none of them matter.

Demons

“Respectable” churches don’t believe in demon possession; it’s not so much that the members are too smart, or would be embarrassed if anyone knew. It’s not that we can write it off to some kind of psychiatric problem. Those are factors no doubt. But the biggest reason we don’t believe in demon possession is because we don’t see it. And we don’t see it because anyone with a demon and sense enough to get some help from Jesus’ people is not going to show up at a church that doesn’t believe in it. I know, chicken or the egg.

Or maybe respectable churches do see cases of demon possession, but don’t know how to call it that. Or don’t recognize anything at all.

I guess respectable churches have a lot to answer for: so many people who need real help can’t get it because we don’t confront sin, we don’t ask for repentance, we just let people drift, and then we don’t recognize the spiritual oppression people face. We listen to the sinners and cater to them. Where they need the strong medicine of Holy Spirit conviction and repentance, we want to make sure they feel welcome.

This is all coming out due to a conversation I had a few days ago. “Sue” was talking about “Dan,” who had come to church drunk and mean and scared. Drunk and mean was about all you’d see, but Sue, herself one who battled the bottle and the needle, pointed out Dan is scared. Scared as Hell, scared of Hell. And I find something he said pretty telling. I came into church with a bag of ice. He said, “You have what every soul in Hell wants.” Ice. Yes, but more: ice and Jesus.

Sue let me know part of what I already knew, that Dan is dying, and is thinking of some of the guys around us who have died lately from wearing their bodies out with alcohol, drugs, homelessness and despair. She said he told her he sees demons everywhere, feels them clawing at him, dragging him off.

Now, it’s easy enough to say, “well of course he does. He’s drunk all the time. No telling what he sees.” And that is true, literally true.

And yet here’s what else is true: Sue told me of the time she was just sobering up, getting back to church, cleaning things up. There’s no harder place to do that, she said, than along North Limestone. Every time she went anywhere, especially on her way to the church, “the demons were everywhere. Every crackhead came out of the woodwork, and it took all I had to keep going where I was going and not get dragged back into that life.”

So while he may have a desire to stop drinking--and how many times have I been in his house pouring out liquor, wrestling with him, and he has knuckled under?—there’s plenty of folks who don’t want him to stop, who want to sell him some, who want him to buy them some.

And if the demons are so brazen, so out in plain sight, and God’s people cannot recognize spiritual oppression, then it is not so hard to imagine that indeed, the closer Dan gets to death, the more he feels the tug of the grave, and the more there are demons who cannot wait to devour him for eternity.

A Good Day

Today was a wonderful day. We spent it all outside, except for a few runs to the hardware and seed stores.

It started with working out with some of the boys at church.

Then we got some supplies for the transplants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc—we’ll be selling them soon!).

We came home and the boys played basketball or some games on the porch. Jessie and I mowed the yard and got the compost pile turned and the grass added in. We had a picnic lunch on the steps.

Then we built the three raised beds for the backyard garden. While we were working on this, John said, “we should do this everyday. This is really good family time.” Jessie reminded him that come summer, we’ll have nothing to do but this kind of work! John is excited by the seed potatoes that came in yesterday—15 lbs of heirloom taters. Jessie has this plan to grow them in tires, covering the potato leaves with dirt, which forces the leaves to create more tubers… Theoretically, one plant can produce up to 40 lbs of potatoes this way.

As the day was winding down, we planted strawberries in their bed, watered them and the onions, thought about planting peas, lettuce, and radishes. We’ll have a dinner of roast pork, mashed potatoes, salad and cornbread. Then maybe we’ll go see Steve and Connie.

We did not go see Steve and Connie. So Steve, if you're reading this and getting excited that we were going to have come and seen y'all, don't be bummed when we didn't arrive...

Jessie said, "It's going to be a good summer." It has struck me lately that for some time I did not allow myself to think it was going to be a good anything. You just have no way of knowing. Time has eased some pain. And then a new faith in the Lord has grown and has shown that come what may, "all things will be well. All manner of things will be well."

Wow

I heard on the news that the Episcopal Church defrocked a priest because she had converted to Islam. She believes the two religions are compatible (I wonder where she got her Islam, but anyway.) So I guess she did not really convert as much as she's trying to be "two things."

Apparently in the Episcopal Church, you can be gay, just not a Muslim. Heck, you can be ANYTHING, just not a Muslim.

I am shocked, positively shocked, at this level of intolerance.