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Back in Bujumbura

Amahoro!

After a long journey that included a canceled flight and a two-hour 'night' in a hotel in Nairobi, I have finally made it back to Bujumbura, Burundi.

Can't say much now because I am using someone's computer quickly and we have to move on, but wanted to let you know I was here and to encourage you to check in for updates during my two-week stay.

Unlike previous visits I don't have conferences or seminars planned. The goal is to meet with people to talk about the process of reconciliation in this nation traumatized by ethnic conflict and still staggering under the weight of crushing poverty.

I was encouraged to find an open person next to me on my morning flight from Nairobi today, a flight that wouldn't have taken place had an airport strike Sunday not caused my flight to be canceled.

I had a great and very candid talk with this young woman who seemed to have an excellent grasp of the principles of forgiveness. I asked her if she was a student. She smiled and told me who she was.

She is a senior advisor to the president of Burundi, in charge of protocol. I'm always amazed at the youth of the people in positions of authority and influence in this country. Anyway, who knows what will come of this latest contact.

Just one of those little winks that convinces me i'm not alone.

Since then, I was able to hook up with Claude Nikondeha, whom I have known from a distance for years since being introduced by Brian McClaren. Claude, an advocate for the poor, is behind Amahoro, an organization that seeks to develop church leaders who can break out of convention and effectively live oiut faith in ways that engage today's world.

We really click and think in many of the same ways about faith and life.

Claude introduced me to several friends, including one whose organization Help Channel is exactly the kind of homegrown effort that we are looking to learn from and walk with. I will be meeting up some more with Cassien later this week.

CHANGES

It's nice to be back here again. It is hard not to like the people here and the simple way of life. But one can feel the changes and the development that are happening here as the country slowly emerges and begins to taste the fruit of the peace it has maintained now for several years after 11 years of bloody conflict.

Not all of the changes are positive, though. One can sense the desire for the Western lifestyle that is so attractive and yet so destructive ultimately to the long-term development of countries like this.

When people are not used to hoping in their future, seeking rewards now becomes the sole driving force. Though many fiscal conservatives think that greed motivation is a good thing, it actually leads people to actions that will ultimately ruin true, healthy development in this society.

More on that later, but people like Claude are seeing the results of this short-term motivation and how it threatens the solid development efforts that people here have put in place for themselves.

More soon

Todd  

Testing

When I was in Burundi last time this worked for posting to the blog. Does it still?

Abortion: When accusers repent

I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of international students about the beliefs and convictions of Martin Luther King Jr. 

It was mostly a young group, familiar with the grand ideas of Dr. King, but largely ignorant of the context that produced him, or the historical importance of his message.

After the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller and the stirring of emotions it produced, I thought the same message might be useful for those who feel passionately about abortion.

LESSON FROM HISTORY

After showing the international students photos of lynchings and sharing examples of injustices that Black people faced in the  United States systematically over decades leading up to the Civil Rights movement, I helped them understand that many in America were on the verge of taking up arms.

Many believed that it was justifiable and necessary to begin "defending their rights" by physically fighting back. That's why the non-violent message of Dr. King was so crucial to the progress we have seen in America today. One need only look at Israel and Palestine today to imagine what could have happened in the States had enough Blacks started killing Whites in the name of justice.

King had understood and was successful in teaching his followers a key Biblical idea that I think is crucial for those who feel passionately about protecting the unborn.

THE MONSTER IN THE MIRROR

King stressed tirelessly the need to love those who oppressed you, even as you called them out for their injustices. He understood the teaching of Christ reminding people that they would be judged in the same way they judged others.

He believed and taught that it was crucial that they bless those who cursed them and pray for those who were mistreating them.

He understood what Jesus understood: that victims (or those who take up their cause) become so focused on the evil committed by their enemies that they forget that their own hearts are ultimately capable of the same wrong. 

That even as they call their oppressors monsters or dogs, they become guilty of the very same basic sin as the one they have come to hate.

They have violated the second greatest commandment of loving their neighbors as themselves. They have allowed themselves to believe that they are more worthy of love than is their oppressor. 

From that point one is able to decide that he or she is more worthy of life than the oppressor. And some can then decide to act on that logic.

Only when victims repent of their own arrogant belief in their superiority over their oppressors can they truly love that oppressor as Jesus exhorted his followers to do. And only when one chooses to love (or at least not to hate) can the cycle of revenge and destruction that we see so often be avoided. 

King was greatly transformed when he saw the power behind this teaching, and a nation was spared what might have become civil war at worst or a long battle with domestic terrorists at best.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

I read a quote from one woman reacting to Tiller's death by saying she would feel the same way had a rat been killed. If you pay attention, you'll notice people on all sides of any issue often portraying the enemy in less than human terms.

That's what Jesus seems to be warning his followers against when he says not only that killing our enemies is wrong, but insulting them is basically the same thing. But that if we didn't get a grip on what was happening in our hearts, it was only a matter of time before we became just like the monster we decry.

Even from a practical standpoint, if the goal is really to save the lives of unborn children, I would think that goal would  be served better by a rhetoric bathed in understanding and compassion (see Jesus with the woman accused in adultery) than with vitriolic condemnation (see Pharisees in same story).

When the accused feels that he or she is understood and that his or her point has been heard, that person is much more likely to hear what YOU have to say.

And, at the same time, you are much more likely to imagine what YOU would need if YOU were in that person's shoes. 

It all begins with the understanding, of course, that you really are in that person's shoes. With just a simple change in circumstances, the person you accuse could be you, or your son or your daughter.

No matter which injustice stirs us to indignation -- injustice against babies, against women, against people groups, against homosexuals, against animals -- we need to constantly remind ourselves that the value and dignity of each human does not end (especially if one claims to believe the Bible) when that person does something wrong.

I, for one, am glad of that.

Time to confess and repent?

The topics are moving far more quickly than my ability to get back to writing. But the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller brings to light again the need for Christians to consider the foundations of their faith. 

How are they representing their God? Are they really communicating Good News to the world? Check out what Frank Schaeffer, the son of famed Christian writer Francis Schaeffer, has to say about all of this. He is leading Christians to repent for much of their words and actions. Listen closely to what he has to say.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Supreme test

Obama's Supreme Court pick is going to put my blogging resolve to the test. 

Apparently, Affirmative Action is going to be a key factor in the coming confirmation battle over Sonia Sotomayor. If I can't get fired up to discuss this subject, then I am in real trouble.

Reverse discrimination, which I am happy to see MSNBC using instead of the euphemistic Affirmative Action, is often mentioned by outraged majority culture people who seem to have just figured out what AA is.

Once we decide to call it what it is we can get around to talking about why we should or shouldn't do it. One of the reasons we have such outrage about the idea, I will contend, is that we are still not repentant as a nation. 

We'll take a look again at reconciliation principles and see how it applies. 

Talk to you soon.

Another boost

Last night I got back on the lecture circuit with a short presentation on how Martin Luther King's faith influenced the Civil Rights movement, and, conversely, how the movement influenced his faith.

I was invited to speak on the subject by a campus group and spoke before a small group of international students on the subject. This particular talk was a first for me, so it was fun to launch some new material.

To me it's vital to understand that the principles of reconciliation can be applied and experienced by people, regardless of their faith status, and that the subject provides a perfect opportunity for people to discover faith in action rather than just in words.

King was a man of doubts and publicly disclosed personal shortcomings, but he held tight onto one core belief, that all of God's people were created equal and were deserving of life and love and respect. This was true of his black brethren. This was true of his enemies and oppressors. This was true of poor people from every race and background. This was even true of Vietnamese halfway across the world.

He put into action the one thing he was sure about, and along the way, according to biographers, he discovered a deep faith that allowed him to face down and even accept death.

Breaking the slump

OK. Trying to get out of the longest, most-serious writing slump of my life.

A good friend of mine told me that the only way to get out of it was to get out of it. 

So, I am writing today and hopefully will continue posting until I actually start writing something worth reading. I have promised to write about Somali pirates, and there is a whole bunch more on my mind these days.

So, here's hoping this is the beginning of a my return.

If you're one to pray, send up some words for me. OK?

See you soon.

Calling me out

It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the eve of the inauguration of America's first black president AND we're in the midst of another heated battle in Palestine while people are taking passionate stands on either side of the conflict.

How can an African-American blogger committed to contributing to the discussion of reconciliation between peoples be silent at a time like this?

He can't.

I've been out of commission while adjusting to a new job (alas, blogging doesn't yet pay, at least for me), but it is like the world is throwing me a big, slow hanging curve ball and I can't help but take a swing.

So in the next few days, whenever I can find a spare block of time, I will be attempting to offer some thoughts on how a reconciler might approach such an intractable situation. It's been disheartening to me to hear comments from so many Christians, when discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict, that fuel the fire of division and hatred rather than building toward peace.

I believe that we all -- regardless of our beliefs -- can and should be speaking in writing in ways that help build peace and reconciliation. And I think if we take a step back we will find that it is not as difficult as it may seem. 

And nor does it involve ignoring what we think are fundamental truths that cannot be compromised. 

We'll get into this in the next few days.

 And, in light of the inauguration, I'll share some of my hopes as a reconciler for the new preisdent.

For now, however, I need to get back to work. So I leave you with a video clip of hope. May we all be given a vision from the mountaintop that gives us hope for a tomorrow that will be different from today so that we can move without fear toward that new reality.

Human face on the principles

Not ready to dive back into writing after the pre-election series, but I came across this interesting video that puts a face to our often thoughtless comments about Muslims.

For those who have very little contact with Muslims (like any other group with whom we have little it is too easy to stick our stereotypes. This clip helps you see what I and many others who have many Muslim and Arabic friends and neighbors see all the time.

Normal people who want to live a decent life. It helps us get back to the basic principles of our fundamentally equal worth and then to figure out how to act like we think it is true.

New look by accident

By the way, if you like the new look it is kind of an accident.

I was trying to add a widget about the election and everything went haywire.

So I had to rebuild everything.

The good side of this is that I got my book list working again. That's my favorite thing to share on here besides my humble opinions.

Anyway, it may be changing again soon, but for now this is it. Also, I know it is kind of lame having my counter boasting away about how many people have visited the site, especially since most of the hits are me or google searches that realize this is not what they were looking for.

But I use the counter to get details on my hits and I'm not sure how to hide it. So, voila!