Short Hiatus

Life and work being what they are these days, there probably will not be many posts for the next two or three weeks. Work is a cycle of lulls and madness. Add that to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and, well, life gets out of control if I don't cut back somewhere.

Please check out the links at right in my absence. Really, you should just read them anyway. : )

Thanks and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

-Burkinator

Go Ahead—Get Angry at God!

The other day I started writing a post about having a major argument with God during the past year or so. It was a struggle, so decided to set it aside for a bit. Then a friend of mine sent me a link to an audio clip from her church. Sara Groves spoke to their women's group recently about her own argument with God as well as how and why she is involved with ending slavery in the world.

You're probably tired of reading my references to Sara, but these days she's right on the money. Bear with me! Her introduction is aimed toward women, but hang in there because the stories she tells after that are powerful. She makes essentially the same point I was fighting to make about being angry at God about what we see in the world. Then she sings, so really, this is better than my post. I promise you I will never sing.

If you've ever been ticked off at the horrible things you've seen, I challenge you to listen to this audio clip. Then go have your own fight with God and see what He says. If you listen closely, He will answer.

Minnesota Nice

I once lived in Minneapolis, MN. It's a beautiful city for about five months of the year. Then the arctic winds blow in and make you think the whole earth is a barren, frozen tundra. Yet hidden away inside warm buildings, hiding from the bitter cold and stinging wind, are some of the warmest hearts I've ever come across. Minnesota nice is not just a cliché.

People there are pretty sympathetic and politically involved. Minneapolis is a fairly Democratic and liberal-leaning city, which sometimes drove me batty, but the upside is that most people root for the little guy, the disadvantaged and the oppressed and expect the state government to do the same. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the recent thrust to stop human trafficking in the state. U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose is my new hero.

Please click on this link to see what one inspired person can accomplish. Pray for this brave woman—I'd guess a lot of people don't like her much these days. Find out if there are any similar initiatives in your state. If not, start bugging your elected officials to find out why not.

Another Tale

A newspaper in the Philippines, The Inquirer, tells the story of two Filipinas lured to Singapore by the promise of a good job. They were deceived and then exploited. This tragedy is repeated on every continent. Yet I am encouraged that a national newspaper highlighted these cases and warned of the danger lurking behind these "too good to be true" job offers.

May more people hear these warnings and be rescued from the desperate circumstances that have made them so vulnerable in the first place.

Will This Matter in 10 Years?

"In the light of 100 years, will that little thing that annoyed you in traffic this morning matter? Will you even remember it in a month?" asked the speaker in chapel here at work today. One benefit of working for a Christian organization is hearing someone speak each morning about a Scripture passage. Our speaker today was looking at James 1:2.

His comment made me smile, because it was a close paraphrase of something my friend Jamie frequently said when we shared an apartment with a perennial kitchen disaster-making friend. Said roomie was rarely home, but occasionally she would appear, make a very involved meal for her fiancé, then disappear again. The resulting kitchen disaster would sit untouched for days. More than once Jamie and I gave in and did the dishes.

This irritated me to no end, but Jamie has a tolerance for people and their foibles that I can only aspire to. She'd sigh and say, "Will this matter in 10 years?"

I'd grind my teeth and say, "No. But it will matter in the morning when I still haven't read the six chapters of missions history for Dr. Smeeton's class!" Then we'd laugh, and I'd wash all the silverware that Jamie's OCD tendencies prevented her from touching, and she'd dry the dishes and put them away. The only aspect of that situation that still matters now—nearly 10 years later—is the friendship with Jamie that grew out of cleaning up multiple apartment disasters.

How many things do I get worked up about each day that will not matter in ten minutes, not to mention in 10 years and certainly in 100 years? There are plenty. The irritation that rises each Monday when I arrive home from work and see that once again the garbage man left my trash can in the middle of my driveway so I can't pull in. Little quirks we all have at home and work and church. The obsessive tendencies that everyone but me seems to have. The people who drive in the exit lane all the way to the end, then drive in the shoulder and cut in front of 500 cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic, who seem to think the rules of the road are for other people.

I could go on for years ... yet what do I want to be remembered for? For getting a barricade put in the end of the exit lane to make people obey traffic laws? Or for doing something that will matter in 100 years? Fighting something that makes God angry?

A lot of things vie for time and attention these days, but I am asking God to help me focus on 100 years from now. Some of these things are simple. I can stop complaining. I can express my gratitude for the life I have. I can find new ways to demonstrate God's love to the people in my life, which may sound small but is probably one of my biggest struggles.

Beyond that, I want to discover how to demonstrate God's love to the oppressed, the enslaved, the abused. I want to tell them that God hasn't forgotten them. That this wasn't His plan for the world. That He has a better plan, and in the meantime, He wants to take our pain, our brokenness, our weakness and turn them into something beautiful.

I am so thankful for the local Clapham crew, for people who have this same heart to reach out and do something that will matter in 10 years—or 100.

(Sorry if there are typos here. This was in my head, so I punched it out during a break before it ran away from me ... )

Sounds Like Good News ...

Sounds like the U.S. government is still taking trafficking seriously. I haven't taken time to look over this thoroughly, but I'm happy to read that the visa program for victims of trafficking is being strengthened.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to finally be free from your oppressors, only to be treated as a criminal yourself and be deported to your home country and treated as a leper by your family and friends? Or be snatched up again by other traffickers because your financial situation is even more dire than it was the first time around? This bill is important because it makes a distinction between people who are brought to this country against their will and those who are merely entering illegally.

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

If you live in the Carolinas and want to fight slavery, join us this week for the third gathering of the Carolina Clapham Circle. Visit my friend Bob's blog and fill out the information box on the left side of the page. He'll send you details about the meeting. We are eager to discover what we can do in our own neighborhood to fight this evil.

Talk About Crafty!

In case this isn't already obvious, slave traffickers are extremely slippery, deceitful people. This blog post is just one example of their wiles.

Lord, give us even more creative ways to stop the evil!