Saturday, April 10, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday in Haiti
Fun in the sun, the hot, hot sun continues. The clinic, with Monica at her chair, continues to see patients. Audrey did exams on more than 500 children today at St. Pierre School. The flouride team treated more than 700 students. This is one sign of the earthquake's effects ... the people coming in from Port-au-Prince to move in with relatives in the country bring their children and swell the schools.
Eric is still hanging lights in the orphanage. He was playing soccer with the kids yesterday and took a spill in the gravel, cutting his chin. This morning there were at least three docs examining and irrigating the wound. He is fine.
I was with Doug on the away team today. We went to the school and church at Trianon, where more than 250 people came through to see the doctors. Until 2 p.m., I was the keeper of the door, and only once channeled my inner Roger Matthews. Young men were trying to slip into the line ahead of crippled old people and feverish babies, so I had a good yell at them, with the help of an interpreter.
In the afternoon, Audrey and I -- along with some other folks from the flouride team -- continued our English conversation sessions with teenagers and young adults from the St. Pierre church. A young man I have known for three trips now -- Alexei, really led the sessions. He is a wonderful teacher.
And here is part of the real damage of the quake. Once you acknowledge the terrible losses of life and limb, the long-range effects on these young people are going to doom a generation. Alexei is 24. The past two trips he has told me of his deep desire to attend university and become an Episcopal priest. Thanks to Pere Jeannot, he had taken ONE SEMESTER at university, beginning last fall. The university is now destroyed, with no immediate plans on how to restart, and Alexei is back in Mirebalais with nothing to do.
Or the girlfriend of Dr. Tony, the HOM clinic dentist. She has been helping in the dental suite this week. She was ONE SEMESTER away from graduating as a full-fledged dentist. And now she is in Mirebalais, almost a dentist, but not quite, with nothing to do.
There are also lingering stresses. One of our drivers, Isaiah, lost his wife in the quake. He is now a single parent of five little children. Pere Jeannot's wife jumped from a balcony with their three children as the building fell. Her injured foot is almost better, but she still refuses to sleep indoors. The backyard of the rectory is a little campground of tents. When the wind blows, suddenly and hard, everyone at the clinic gets nervous, because apparently there was a sudden wind just before the quake, and everyone is afraid it will happen again.
Everyone is grateful for prayers. But soon it will be time to begin to imagine solutions for some of these problems. As the Rev. Lauren Stanley told us last month, Haiti is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Some of this will require lots of money, lots of ingenuity, and lots of commitment over a long time to repair.
+ Kit
Eric is still hanging lights in the orphanage. He was playing soccer with the kids yesterday and took a spill in the gravel, cutting his chin. This morning there were at least three docs examining and irrigating the wound. He is fine.
I was with Doug on the away team today. We went to the school and church at Trianon, where more than 250 people came through to see the doctors. Until 2 p.m., I was the keeper of the door, and only once channeled my inner Roger Matthews. Young men were trying to slip into the line ahead of crippled old people and feverish babies, so I had a good yell at them, with the help of an interpreter.
In the afternoon, Audrey and I -- along with some other folks from the flouride team -- continued our English conversation sessions with teenagers and young adults from the St. Pierre church. A young man I have known for three trips now -- Alexei, really led the sessions. He is a wonderful teacher.
And here is part of the real damage of the quake. Once you acknowledge the terrible losses of life and limb, the long-range effects on these young people are going to doom a generation. Alexei is 24. The past two trips he has told me of his deep desire to attend university and become an Episcopal priest. Thanks to Pere Jeannot, he had taken ONE SEMESTER at university, beginning last fall. The university is now destroyed, with no immediate plans on how to restart, and Alexei is back in Mirebalais with nothing to do.
Or the girlfriend of Dr. Tony, the HOM clinic dentist. She has been helping in the dental suite this week. She was ONE SEMESTER away from graduating as a full-fledged dentist. And now she is in Mirebalais, almost a dentist, but not quite, with nothing to do.
There are also lingering stresses. One of our drivers, Isaiah, lost his wife in the quake. He is now a single parent of five little children. Pere Jeannot's wife jumped from a balcony with their three children as the building fell. Her injured foot is almost better, but she still refuses to sleep indoors. The backyard of the rectory is a little campground of tents. When the wind blows, suddenly and hard, everyone at the clinic gets nervous, because apparently there was a sudden wind just before the quake, and everyone is afraid it will happen again.
Everyone is grateful for prayers. But soon it will be time to begin to imagine solutions for some of these problems. As the Rev. Lauren Stanley told us last month, Haiti is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Some of this will require lots of money, lots of ingenuity, and lots of commitment over a long time to repair.
+ Kit
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday in Haiti
Can you say hot? Can you say tired? Everyone is working hard in the heat. The clinic is seeing a steady stream of patients. No evidence of earthquake related injuries, just the usual round of chronic conditions relating to malnutrition and lack of health care. The children are beautiful ... they always are.
Doug is out on the mobile team in Noyeux today. They have to take four by fours, ford streams, and set up shop under tarps in a field. Audrey is amusing the children at Trianon school with the mobile flouride team. Eric is off climbing on some roof somewhere and I am trying not to watch. Monica is reveling in the dental suite. If she had seen it even two years ago, she would be even more amazed. It is good to see a patient and be able to refer them to follow-up with Dentist Tony in a few weeks.
We had a hand surgeon join us on the trip, Dr. Joe Feilla. He was able to get a ride to the Partners in Health center in Cange, where they have patients lined up for him. We can't wait for him to come back Thursday night and tell us all about it.
Internet access is erratic, so I will update as I can, but it may not be every day. Know that we are well and working hard. Keep us in prayer.
+ Kit
Doug is out on the mobile team in Noyeux today. They have to take four by fours, ford streams, and set up shop under tarps in a field. Audrey is amusing the children at Trianon school with the mobile flouride team. Eric is off climbing on some roof somewhere and I am trying not to watch. Monica is reveling in the dental suite. If she had seen it even two years ago, she would be even more amazed. It is good to see a patient and be able to refer them to follow-up with Dentist Tony in a few weeks.
We had a hand surgeon join us on the trip, Dr. Joe Feilla. He was able to get a ride to the Partners in Health center in Cange, where they have patients lined up for him. We can't wait for him to come back Thursday night and tell us all about it.
Internet access is erratic, so I will update as I can, but it may not be every day. Know that we are well and working hard. Keep us in prayer.
+ Kit
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sunday in Haiti
All of us have arrived safely. We spent yesterday unloading the clinic. All Saints was there in every pack of Rolaids and every bottle of Children's Tylenol that we unpacked, sorted and stowed away. This is a smaller team this year ... half the size of last year's trip, and we are focusing on getting through our regular mission work without the dominating presence of Roger Matthews. It is different, but Dominique is holding up well and all of us are willingly working together.
Monica is delighted beyond belief with the excellent condition of the dental room. A full time dentist employed by HOM has been seeing patients regularly. She has set up her equipment and is excited to see patients, beginning tomorrow.
Doug will be on the traveling medical clinic that is going out into the countryside to do basic medical care. Audrey will go with the flouride team into schools to do preliminary exams of the children for possible referral to the clinic. Eric is working with the construction guys. But we are all flexible, and any of this could change.
Pere Jeannot's family is still living outside in tents in his back yard. His wife was in their home in Port au Prince during the earthquake and jumped with the children to safety from the balcony. She is still shaken by the experience and so far feels more comfortable out of doors. Our construction team has looked at all the buildings and there are no more than superficial cracks, so we are all sleeping well, some in the Hotel Mirage, and some in the St. Louis rectory.
We did not see much earthquake damage on the way out from the airport ... although at the airport, the main terminal is unusable and we cleared customs in a cargo shed. The main damage is in the city center, which we do not ever see. Out in the countryside, things appear much the same.
Today church lasted 3 hours, but we all had an excellent time. There was lots of good music, and I preached with Dominique translating. We had special prayers for Roger. Pere Jeannot's three-year-old son, Olivier, joined us for the procession and spent some time wandering around on the altar or helping the musicians. He is getting very big!
Love to all, and I will post again if I can get to a working computer. Keep us in prayer.
-- Pere Kit
Monica is delighted beyond belief with the excellent condition of the dental room. A full time dentist employed by HOM has been seeing patients regularly. She has set up her equipment and is excited to see patients, beginning tomorrow.
Doug will be on the traveling medical clinic that is going out into the countryside to do basic medical care. Audrey will go with the flouride team into schools to do preliminary exams of the children for possible referral to the clinic. Eric is working with the construction guys. But we are all flexible, and any of this could change.
Pere Jeannot's family is still living outside in tents in his back yard. His wife was in their home in Port au Prince during the earthquake and jumped with the children to safety from the balcony. She is still shaken by the experience and so far feels more comfortable out of doors. Our construction team has looked at all the buildings and there are no more than superficial cracks, so we are all sleeping well, some in the Hotel Mirage, and some in the St. Louis rectory.
We did not see much earthquake damage on the way out from the airport ... although at the airport, the main terminal is unusable and we cleared customs in a cargo shed. The main damage is in the city center, which we do not ever see. Out in the countryside, things appear much the same.
Today church lasted 3 hours, but we all had an excellent time. There was lots of good music, and I preached with Dominique translating. We had special prayers for Roger. Pere Jeannot's three-year-old son, Olivier, joined us for the procession and spent some time wandering around on the altar or helping the musicians. He is getting very big!
Love to all, and I will post again if I can get to a working computer. Keep us in prayer.
-- Pere Kit
Friday, March 19, 2010
On Our Way to Haiti
We are in the airport in Miami, waiting to board the flight to Port-au-Prince. Doug Powe and Eric Hegg should already be there, having traveled separately yesterday, slept in Ft. Lauderdale and gotten on their Haiti flights early this morning. They will have to wait as the rest of us straggle in on our various flights throughout the day. By 4 p.m. or so we should be on the road to Mirebalais, God and the crazy customs situation willing.
It is good to reconnect with old friends from previous trips and to meet new friends joining us for the first time. All of us are in pretty good spirits. Of course, we are still safely in America, swathed with the comforting sounds of CNN on the airport TVs, the vast array of junk food spread out around us, resting in air conditioning that is maybe just a tiny bit too cold.
All of this is not what it will be like in Port-au-Prince.
Monday, October 5, 2009
So what really happens in the Eucharist?
The short answer is ... we don't know.
However, I understand that there was a lot of discussion following Carrie Euler's presentation on Eucharistic controversies during the Reformation. People want to know... well, what do we think now?
It would be easy to take the dodge offered by (or attributed to) Elizabeth I:
Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what that Word doth make it,
That I believe, and take it.
But we ought to be able to do some theological exploration around this. What do we think is happening in the Eucharist?
For now, I offer you this short essay I wrote some years ago on the matter. Later, we can talk more.
Peace,
Kit
I believe that Christ is the Word of God, and that as that Word, Christ is made manifest throughout the entire Eucharistic action. Humans use words and gestures to communicate with each other; if God wants to communicate with humans, as we believe God does, what better way than to use the means of human communication, words and gestures, speech and symbols? And what better way to enter into full communication with humanity than in the Incarnation, by becoming an embodied human being, able to understand us by living as one of us, able to communicate with us by being one of us, using the media of our world – words and gestures, speech and symbols, to speak with us?
As God revealed God’s self to the Israelites, they began to set that revelation into words that described the history of their encounters with God. First the Law, the sacred covenant that outlined the nature of their relationship with the Creator. Then the Prophets, who interpreted Israel’s life with God against the backdrop of the Law and called Israel to true relationship with God. Then the Writings, the prayers and songs and wisdom and stories that described the everyday nature of life with the One God. These writings grew out of Israel’s liturgies of worship, and once written down, were used in Israel’s liturgies of worship in a mutually interpreting feedback loop of revelation and praise.
But to communicate effectively with humanity and to enter fully into human life and to redeem it, that Word became enfleshed, we believe, in the man Jesus of Nazareth. In his life on earth, Jesus used the media of human communication – words and actions – to combat evil in all its forms. In his death on the cross, Jesus used the entire medium of human life to conquer evil once and for all. Following his resurrection, his ongoing Body in the world, the Church, also used words and actions to retell this story of redemption, to recreate it for themselves in liturgical gestures and words that would make the truth of our redemption in Christ present to the community and to the world.
That is the story of our redemption that we re-tell and re-enact in every Eucharistic celebration – the story that is encoded in the Biblical narrative, the story that is re-told, re-taught, and offered in prayer during the entire Eucharistic liturgy. And I think that this is no mere memorial or remembrance of what Christ did. It is a liturgy that prays for God’s grace to enter into the gathered community so that it may become the Body of Christ in the world by feeding on the real Body of Christ we experience in the Word and in the Bread and Wine.
God is seeking us, God is reaching out to have a relationship with us, and we respond to God in faith when we hear that call. We first we hear that longing for relationship in the Word read in Scripture and unfolded for us in the Sermon. We hear the Biblical narrative, we hear the Word of God. When a word is spoken, it expresses a self-disclosure on the part of the speaker. When that word is the word of Scripture spoken in the Eucharistic liturgy, it is a self-disclosure on the part of God. It is God’s testimony to the truth that God loves us, God desires our relationship, God acts to redeem us so that we can share that relationship with God. We are confronted with God’s missionary Word, calling us into relationship. We respond in faith and prayer, opening our hearts so that we can encounter God in this Word. The Word calls us; the Word also stands over and against us, becoming the basis for our relationship with God, the ground for God’s judgment of our lives and behavior.
As we encounter this Word, as we respond in faith to the truth of God’s Testimony in that Word, we long for a deeper communion with God, a fuller encounter. God has already been made manifest to us in the proclamation of the saving Word and in our response to the truth of the Word’s testimony in prayer. Christ has already become present to us. But as with any loving relationship, the words also call for gestures, for touch, for embodiment, and so we move into the actions of the Eucharist seeking a deeper Encounter with God.
Macquarrie points out that in the Eucharistic liturgy, the presence of Christ is a personal one – in which communication takes place between two persons. But it is also a multiple one. Christ is present in the word which speaks his truth, in the priest who presides, since Christ is the presider at every Eucharist, in the gathered community, which is one body with him, and in the bread and wine which focus his presence for us (pp. 126, 127). We are embodied beings, and so we seek to touch God, to encounter an embodied God, and Christ bespoke Bread and Wine as the means by which God could be embodied after the physical form of Jesus was no longer present with us.
Bread and Wine are symbols of the sustenance we need to survive. When they become symbols of Christ present to us and with us, the elements’ function as purely physical sustenance become functional as spiritual sustenance as well. Christ could have chosen any physical element to embody himself for us. He chose Bread and Wine to speak his presence to us because they already speak to us. His choosing of Bread and Wine amplifies their symbolism of life-sustaining reality into a symbolism of the life-sustaining reality that is Christ himself.
With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christ became present to everyone who believes in him. But the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist focuses Christ’s uncontainable presence in these elements. As embodied beings, we need to touch the Body of Christ, just as the disciples touched their risen Lord on Easter night (Luke 24:36 ff.). Focused in the elements of bread and wine, we touch Christ there, we feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving, and we do it in profound unity and communion with Christ’s gathered Body, present there at the altar rail with us, present in the communion of saints with us, present in the final eschatological banquet with us. Time collapses in the Eucharist, all time is as one, and the icon that gives us the glimpse of that eternal banquet is the entire Eucharistic liturgy, building to the climactic communal moment in which we are united with each other and with the Holy Trinity by means of the sacramental eating and drinking.
So are the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood? I think God is bigger than that. It can’t be reduced to that. It also denies the reality of the Incarnation, when God became human, but did not change that human form. If we believe in the Incarnation, then we must believe that God uses the sacraments in the same way, entering, but not changing, some created stuff so that it can speak the Word to us, bear Testimony to us, create Encounter for us, so that we can be drawn in to the deep, self-giving communion of God’s love within God’s self, a love which cannot be contained, but which spills out to draw all of us into that deep, self-giving love.
However, I understand that there was a lot of discussion following Carrie Euler's presentation on Eucharistic controversies during the Reformation. People want to know... well, what do we think now?
It would be easy to take the dodge offered by (or attributed to) Elizabeth I:
Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what that Word doth make it,
That I believe, and take it.
But we ought to be able to do some theological exploration around this. What do we think is happening in the Eucharist?
For now, I offer you this short essay I wrote some years ago on the matter. Later, we can talk more.
Peace,
Kit
I believe that Christ is the Word of God, and that as that Word, Christ is made manifest throughout the entire Eucharistic action. Humans use words and gestures to communicate with each other; if God wants to communicate with humans, as we believe God does, what better way than to use the means of human communication, words and gestures, speech and symbols? And what better way to enter into full communication with humanity than in the Incarnation, by becoming an embodied human being, able to understand us by living as one of us, able to communicate with us by being one of us, using the media of our world – words and gestures, speech and symbols, to speak with us?
As God revealed God’s self to the Israelites, they began to set that revelation into words that described the history of their encounters with God. First the Law, the sacred covenant that outlined the nature of their relationship with the Creator. Then the Prophets, who interpreted Israel’s life with God against the backdrop of the Law and called Israel to true relationship with God. Then the Writings, the prayers and songs and wisdom and stories that described the everyday nature of life with the One God. These writings grew out of Israel’s liturgies of worship, and once written down, were used in Israel’s liturgies of worship in a mutually interpreting feedback loop of revelation and praise.
But to communicate effectively with humanity and to enter fully into human life and to redeem it, that Word became enfleshed, we believe, in the man Jesus of Nazareth. In his life on earth, Jesus used the media of human communication – words and actions – to combat evil in all its forms. In his death on the cross, Jesus used the entire medium of human life to conquer evil once and for all. Following his resurrection, his ongoing Body in the world, the Church, also used words and actions to retell this story of redemption, to recreate it for themselves in liturgical gestures and words that would make the truth of our redemption in Christ present to the community and to the world.
That is the story of our redemption that we re-tell and re-enact in every Eucharistic celebration – the story that is encoded in the Biblical narrative, the story that is re-told, re-taught, and offered in prayer during the entire Eucharistic liturgy. And I think that this is no mere memorial or remembrance of what Christ did. It is a liturgy that prays for God’s grace to enter into the gathered community so that it may become the Body of Christ in the world by feeding on the real Body of Christ we experience in the Word and in the Bread and Wine.
God is seeking us, God is reaching out to have a relationship with us, and we respond to God in faith when we hear that call. We first we hear that longing for relationship in the Word read in Scripture and unfolded for us in the Sermon. We hear the Biblical narrative, we hear the Word of God. When a word is spoken, it expresses a self-disclosure on the part of the speaker. When that word is the word of Scripture spoken in the Eucharistic liturgy, it is a self-disclosure on the part of God. It is God’s testimony to the truth that God loves us, God desires our relationship, God acts to redeem us so that we can share that relationship with God. We are confronted with God’s missionary Word, calling us into relationship. We respond in faith and prayer, opening our hearts so that we can encounter God in this Word. The Word calls us; the Word also stands over and against us, becoming the basis for our relationship with God, the ground for God’s judgment of our lives and behavior.
As we encounter this Word, as we respond in faith to the truth of God’s Testimony in that Word, we long for a deeper communion with God, a fuller encounter. God has already been made manifest to us in the proclamation of the saving Word and in our response to the truth of the Word’s testimony in prayer. Christ has already become present to us. But as with any loving relationship, the words also call for gestures, for touch, for embodiment, and so we move into the actions of the Eucharist seeking a deeper Encounter with God.
Macquarrie points out that in the Eucharistic liturgy, the presence of Christ is a personal one – in which communication takes place between two persons. But it is also a multiple one. Christ is present in the word which speaks his truth, in the priest who presides, since Christ is the presider at every Eucharist, in the gathered community, which is one body with him, and in the bread and wine which focus his presence for us (pp. 126, 127). We are embodied beings, and so we seek to touch God, to encounter an embodied God, and Christ bespoke Bread and Wine as the means by which God could be embodied after the physical form of Jesus was no longer present with us.
Bread and Wine are symbols of the sustenance we need to survive. When they become symbols of Christ present to us and with us, the elements’ function as purely physical sustenance become functional as spiritual sustenance as well. Christ could have chosen any physical element to embody himself for us. He chose Bread and Wine to speak his presence to us because they already speak to us. His choosing of Bread and Wine amplifies their symbolism of life-sustaining reality into a symbolism of the life-sustaining reality that is Christ himself.
With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christ became present to everyone who believes in him. But the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist focuses Christ’s uncontainable presence in these elements. As embodied beings, we need to touch the Body of Christ, just as the disciples touched their risen Lord on Easter night (Luke 24:36 ff.). Focused in the elements of bread and wine, we touch Christ there, we feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving, and we do it in profound unity and communion with Christ’s gathered Body, present there at the altar rail with us, present in the communion of saints with us, present in the final eschatological banquet with us. Time collapses in the Eucharist, all time is as one, and the icon that gives us the glimpse of that eternal banquet is the entire Eucharistic liturgy, building to the climactic communal moment in which we are united with each other and with the Holy Trinity by means of the sacramental eating and drinking.
So are the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood? I think God is bigger than that. It can’t be reduced to that. It also denies the reality of the Incarnation, when God became human, but did not change that human form. If we believe in the Incarnation, then we must believe that God uses the sacraments in the same way, entering, but not changing, some created stuff so that it can speak the Word to us, bear Testimony to us, create Encounter for us, so that we can be drawn in to the deep, self-giving communion of God’s love within God’s self, a love which cannot be contained, but which spills out to draw all of us into that deep, self-giving love.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Hope for Overwhelmed Moms
I am excited about the new MOPS group that will provide support and fellowship for mothers of children up through 6th grade. This group is open to the entire community, not only All Saints folks, and the first meeting is featuring a wonderful speaker.Karen Hossink, an Okemos author, has written a book about her struggles with parenting and her growing awareness that the challenge of child-rearing is making her the woman God believes her to be. The book is called "Confessions of an Irritable Mother: Hope for Overwhelmed Moms."
As one who has walked the long path (and continues to walk it ... they're never really done, are they?) of parenting, I appreciate her honesty about the challenges and her graceful ability to see God's hand in even the more unattractive moments of motherhood.
I hope you will invite your mothering friends and neighbors to join us this Friday evening. Potluck at 6 p.m. and Karen Hossink will speak at 6:30 p.m. Pass the word along!
+ Kit
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