Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

Whom does education serve? It serves much more than individual students. It is a foundation for lives that comprise a community. Education gives employers a workforce to hire. Education raises the level of general skills, as well as abilities to learn and think. That makes better workers, innovators, problem-solvers, and entrepreneurs. Giving children a good, safe base from which to learn is a boon for an entire society, not just the individual children in the system. It makes for a population who can read, understand instructions, learn new skills, and navigate a world of new technologies and innovations. Trauma, however, changes how a child moves into and through an educational setting. We talk about trauma from things like death, illness, job loss, relocation, poverty, school shootings, and the like. We rarely address the trauma associated with violent immigration policies. How do you listen to your teacher, when you are worried about where you will sleep? ...

During our seminary career, Karen and I joined the student missions group heading up planning for the upcoming Student Missions Conference for college students. We were specifically in charge of planning the main meal for the event. Our planning group decided to make the meal an experience, just as much as the breakout sessions, speakers, and other aspects of the missions conference. Karen had been with me on a trip to Brazil, and we came up with the idea of feeding the students a traditional Brazilian meal of black beans and rice with collard greens and a choice of oranges or apples. We could prepare the food rather inexpensively, and extra monies from the meal would go to a missions offering. We talked about some of our experiences confronting hunger and poverty in Brazil and elsewhere. Two particular stories rose to the top. One was a middle-school boy approaching me as I was sitting down to eat a hamburger I had just ordered, asking me if he could have a bite. As the owne...

Back while I was studying Algebra in middle school, Mom was studying issues pertaining to hunger. The USA for Africa effort at the turn of the 80s had sparked a lot of interest in the US in relation to addressing world hunger, and people started sending money to the SBC’s Foreign Mission Board, designated for World Hunger. There was a problem, as the board did not have any personnel working to resolve issues of hunger. It had been an issue neglected in preference to other priorities. Suddenly, there were millions of US Dollars coming to the board, and no viable plans for using those funds. Timothy Brendle came to Brazil from Richmond to speak with missionary personnel about developing projects to tap into those funds that would be appropriate for addressing hunger issues around us. Mom was one of those missionaries with whom Tim met. He tutored me in Algebra while discussing hunger relief efforts, what the funds could and could not be used for, and what might be done with the ...

I wrote some of these words 12 years ago after the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, CT. Unfortunately not much has changed, other than a continued increase in violent rhetoric from many sides. We are especially seeing a lot more violent rhetoric within right-leaning political circles. The public growth and empowerment of Nazi, Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, racist, misogynist, and anti-immigrant sentiment, including related rhetoric and actions continues to increase. We can talk all we want about minor contributing factors, but it does no good if we do not stem the tide of incivility in our media, political, and social discourse. Too many pundits in religious circles have been decrying various issues as responsible for the massacre at Sandy Hook. Some say the issue is the separation of church and state and the withdrawal of state-sponsored religious speech and rituals. Others claim the influence of video game and television violence, or the prevalence of and easy access to deadly...

Did you really think I would give you more importance than my own daughter? Did you really think you could use our father’s memory as a weapon to bend me to your will? Did you really think pulling rank would force me to adapt to your definitions of propriety, when you have never once interrupted your life on my behalf? Did you really think protecting a relationship that has always depended on my initiative would have greater weight than maintaining, caring for, and supporting the family I’ve made and lived with more than twice the time I ever lived with you? Did you really think I would refashion my life and character after your expectations for me? Did you really think I would hand over my autonomy to you, simply because you refused to listen or learn anything about me and my family? Did you really think I would interpret your attempts to control me and my family as love? Did you really think I don’t understand love enough to recognize your prote...

In the humblest of spaces where the reportedly important are loathe to go we find truth, meaning, and value. In a world ripped apart by violence, anger, hate, and incivility all powered by greed, God arrives in the simplest guise of all. God’s arrival is the greatest of all messages, even when we miss the point. As much as we portray ourselves as important, superior, and greater than any and all others, the Greatest of all enters our midst with no semblance of fanfare. As far as anyone in Chickasaw knew, it was another night like any other. Nothing special was going on that evening, unless you count a newborn baby’s cry. There was nothing of note in most of the ways we consider something important. The newborn did not cry out in a sterile hospital delivery room. There were no doctors or nurses attending in scrubs. We’ll never know its Apgar scores. No one recorded weight, length, race, or footprints. The only people to know of this baby’s birth should have been the very few i...