Some Things Never Change

Today makes 35 years since the Duvalier dictatorship fell in Haiti. Jean-Claude Duvalier went into exile on this day in 1986. I told my mom that this morning and she recalled crawling under the windows in their apartment on Delmas 33 with their newborn baby (me). There was so much gunfire outside that she was afraid a stray bullet would come through the window.

Today was also the original end date for the Haitian president's five-year term. Inauguration Day for the current president, Jovenel Moise, was supposed to be February 7, 2016, but an election crisis delayed his inauguration by one year. Naturally, the president has always maintained that he still gets five years from his inauguration, which means he has one year left. The political opposition in Haiti vowed strikes and protests to force him to leave. The Biden administration published a statement this weekend indicating that it is also the opinion of the U.S. government that his term should last one more year. The protesters seem to have succeeded in shutting things down for a few days but it is unlikely that they will be able to force the president out. There has been a wave of kidnappings of schoolchildren over the last year, however, that has been making life miserable in the capital. It likely is connected to the political opposition as well, who want to make life as difficult as possible until they get power.

I'm in the USA and though I feel a little guilty enjoying my unplanned sojourn, I have to admit that it's nice not to have to worry about strikes and protests in Haiti from where I sit. Americans really do not know how good they have it relative to much of the world. In the USA, today was not remarkable for any reason except that it was Super Bowl Sunday. My Dad and I watched Tom Brady and the Bucs clobber the Chiefs. There were no power outages, the gas stations all have fuel, and children will go to school tomorrow without fear. I pray that peace comes to Haiti--I've been praying for that my whole life--but I'm not holding my breath. People were dodging bullets in Haiti when I was a baby and people are doing the same there today. Some things never seem to change.

Fighting for Fitness

They say, "No good deed goes unpunished." At least, that's how it feels every time I try to exercise. 

A couple of years ago, I started playing a lot of basketball to stay in shape. I was working as a high school teacher and I would play with the kids before going home. Over time, however, I sprained both my ankles so badly that I had to give up playing. 

More recently, I've been motivated to get back into shape and get rid of the belly fat that seems to mark every man in his 30s. I started doing ab workouts off an app on my phone called Fitbod in order to get rid of my gut. Before long, however, I discovered that this workout strained muscles that had become vulnerable in my 20s due to an operation I had to repair a hernia & hydrocele. I guess the ab workouts are out for now.

My next plan is to go running more often so I bought a pair of running shoes today. As soon as the strained muscles stop hurting, I'll start trying to build up the amount of distance I can run. I'm hoping that I can lose the belly without running into any new obstacles (literally or metaphorically) to staying healthy.

Black History Month

A friend asked on Facebook, "So . . . why aren't we celebrating Jewish, Chicano, Slavic, or Irish History Month?" As often happens these days, a lot of (mostly white) commenters jumped on him in the comments. I decided to answer his question this way:

Most of the other commenters are focusing on the moral/ethical aspects in responding to your question, but a historical answer would be, "Because they asked for it." BHM goes back a long way to Negro History Week, which was created in the 1920s to highlight the accomplishments of black Americans. And the reason for that would probably be that no other group has had as difficult of a time assimilating into the larger culture (which is not to say that those other groups have never struggled in American society). In white-supremacist narratives, blacks were always farthest from the "ideal." Negro History Week was a way of creating a counter-narrative. 

To the question of, "Why does this one group get special treatment in having its accomplishments highlighted?", the most common answer seems to be, "Because this one group received special mistreatment for a long time and had its accomplishments prevented, discounted or ignored." 

Personally, though, I don't think guilt is the best way of motivating people to appreciate black history. I think all Americans should want to know about, acknowledge and appreciate the uniquely difficult path African-Americans have had to take in this nation, if for no other reason, than that it is uniquely interesting and inspiring. I don't think you have to be black to draw hope from the fact that the light of the image of God could never be put out and that so many encountered Jesus in the depths of their despair and found the strength to push back and push through. Black history also highlights human sinfulness in that it shows the gap between American ideals and reality. The difficulty and intermittent bursts of success this nation has had in achieving unity amid diversity remind us that this world is not our home and that true and ultimate unity will only be experienced in God's kingdom but that we get glimpses of it here and now on earth.

Something No One Else Can Tell You

I watched a cheesy movie with my mom tonight that I hadn't seen since high school: Runaway Bride. 

Julia Roberts doesn't know who she is so she keeps ditching men at the altar. Richard Gere, a journalist from New York City who's assigned to write a story on her ends up falling in love with her. She ditches him at the altar before coming around and proposing to him at his New York apartment. 

It's a silly movie but something in it resonated with me. It's taken me a long time to figure out who I am and what I want to do (and even now, I don't fully know). I've gone through a lot of different opportunities for love but haven't ended up with anyone. The closest I got was in high school. Sometimes, I mope about still being single at 35. 

At other times, I look at my friends, many of whom are now divorced and I feel grateful. It's probably better to avoid the altar until you know who you are. If you don't know that, no one else will be able to tell you.

The Power of a Question

 "Why would you trust a God you fear?"

I was listening to Alisa Childers' podcast today and her guest, Josh Morris, told the story of ex-Christian progressive guru Rob Bell posing the above question to him after noticing a tattoo on his arm that said "Fear God." Morris said he was so agitated by this question and his lack of a good answer to it that he eventually had it altered to cover up the words. 

In his book Tactics, Greg Koukl writes that questions are powerful, for several reasons: They're non-threatening, they can teach us a lot about what other people think, they allow us to make progress on a point without seeming pushy, and they put us in the driver's seat of the conversation. They put a pebble in someone's shoe that can eventually lead them to change their mind.

Not all questions are innocent, though. Some questions, like the serpent's in the garden ("Did God really say...?") are designed to cause the hearer to doubt a belief they have a legitimate right to hold. These kinds of questions can force people into a corner in which there are no good options. 

Koukl writes that the best answer to a loaded question is often another question that requests clarification. Bell's question is designed to make the hearer sweat, but a request for clarification would put the ball back in his court and subtly expose the equivocation his query depends on: "What do you mean by fear? How are you defining that word?" Or maybe, "If your God doesn't cause you to tremble, is he really God?"

Behind the Mask

Tonight, I went to the men's accountability group that I go to when I'm in the United States. It's a group of guys who do things like study the Bible, confess their sins to each other, and pray for each other. Tonight, they were inducting a new "covenant brother." He shared his testimony and the story of how he lost his kids. It was heart-wrenching, but there was also redemption in it. There were several other men in the group who have confessed shocking things. They're a rag tag bunch. What they have in common is that Jesus saved them.

When I meet with the group, I always think, "So this is what life looks like behind the mask." When I think I'm alone, I'm not. When I think I'm terrible, the guy next to me has always done something as bad or worse. When I feel lost and scared, like my life has no meaning, the others remind me that we all feel that way. And then they pray for me and invite me over for dinner.

I've lived most of my life alone. I'm grateful to be able to live this part of it in a community.

Means of Grace

"For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me." (Genesis 33:10)

As the oldest son of Isaac and Rebekah, Esau was the natural heir to Isaac and thus the heir to God's promise to make Abraham a great nation that would bless the entire world. (Gen. 12:1-3) All who blessed him would be blessed; all who cursed him would be cursed.

There was just one problem: Esau's little brother, Jacob, wanted the promise more than Esau did. One day, Esau came in from the field, famished. Jacob, knowing that Esau was impetuous, convinced him to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew. Esau  foolishly took the deal.

Esau usually gets a terrible rap for throwing away the blessing. In the New Testament, the author of Hebrews calls Esau "unholy" and uses his story as a metaphor for sinners who trade their eternal salvation for temporary pleasure. "For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears." (Heb. 12:17) 

But that wasn’t the end of Esau's story. In Genesis 33, after years spent in a far country land running from Esau, who wanted to kill him, Jacob obeyed God and returned to the land of Canaan. Jacob, who knew that he would run into Esau on his way home, was worried. The night before the reunion, Jacob had an encounter with an angel. He stayed up all night wrestling until the angel finally won the bout by touching Jacob's hip, leaving him with a permanent limp. Afterward, Jacob named the place Peniel (face of God), "for I have seen the face of God."

The next day, when Jacob met Esau, Esau's reaction was not at all what he expected. Esau ran to him, hugged him, kissed him, and wept over him. This scene is so moving that it probably inspired part of Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal Son. Unlike the Prodigal Son story, however, this story isn’t about a good character (the kindhearted father) and a bad character (the treacherous son). It's about two bad characters: Esau treated God's blessing as a means to an end, trading the promises for a bowl of stew. Jacob treated his brother as a means to an end, using a bowl of stew to take God's blessing away from Esau.

The resolution of this story is surprising. Jacob, who lied, cheated, and stole in pursuit of God, came to see the face of God in his brother: "For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me." (Gen. 33:10) Esau, who thought he had lost God's blessing to Jacob, received it back in a way through Jacob: "Please accept my blessing that is brought to you..." (Gen. 33:11) Neither brother was healed until he had become a means of grace to heal the other.