Untold Stories

If you only knew how many stories I've never been able to tell about Africa. This was written by a corked Peace Corps volunteer who worked in Benin.

"This is what can happen. They can get lost. The stories can get lost. You can shove them behind the mental grocery list,.... You can slip them behind the
tears, smush them under the insecurity and then forget them. They will simmer. No, not simmer. They will tussle with each other, different versions taking different shapes and then trying to get out. Trying to squeeze themselves out of where you have shelved them with the reassurance that you will come back.
Someday you will come back to them." 
(Monique Schmidt. Last Moon Dancing. A memoir of love and real life in Africa)

When Others Tell Your Story

"It is one thing for someone to get you to tell your story. But it takes it to a whole new level when someone else gets your story so right that they can tell your story better than you do. How much does it mean to you when someone knows your story so well they tell it in front of you? Can you fail to be moved when that happens."
(Leonard Sweet. Nudge. Pg 121)

Be Interested......

"By practicing the art of being interested, the majority of people become fascinating teachers; nearly everyone has an interesting story to tell."
(Jim Collins)

Fall Asleep Church

Ronald Reagan once fell asleep during an audience with the Pope. Much of the church has fallen asleep during other audiences -with postmodernity, with post-Christendom, with a posthuman culture."
(Nudge. Leonard Sweet. Pg 117)

Being Understood

"Some have suggested that being understood is at times even more of a fundamental human need and a more powerful healing force than being loved. In fact, David Augsburger contends that 'being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable."
(Nudge. L Sweet. Pg 114)

No Flowers For Wake Up Calls

"Even when something has slumbered for weeks, months, years, decades, nudgers are the ones to give it a wake-up call. That's why nudgers will get pushback and blowback. My kids hate me when I wake them up. They call me names and gripe at me. Never once have I gotten hugs and kisses from a wake-up call. When we wake the... (insert institution).... from it's Dogmatic slumbers, and point out that the old responses no longer get the needed reactions, we shouldn't expect flowers and hugs."

(Nudge: Leonard Sweet. pg 117)

I Want A Life Like That

"A retired songwriter in Nashville, remarking about country songwriter Tom T. Hall.... "You know, some folks can go around the globe and never see a thing. Tom can go just down the road and see the whole darn world." ( L Sweet. nudge. Pg 104)

Fast From Fast!

"...the more we need to be 'up to speed,' the more we need to fast from fast." (Leonard Sweet. Nudge. Pg 101)

Read many Topics

"The surest way to stop thinking is to read books only in one field and talk only to people who work in one field." (English philosopher John Locke)

Oxbow Flow And Rhythm Of Life

I'm just learning the beauty of living these words.

"..randomness is a reflection of the fact that spiritual forces move mysteriously and 'blow where they will '.... It is only when life slows and oxbows and loops that it can flood out to fertilize unfamiliar plains and terrains."
(L. Sweet. Nudge. Pg98)

Where is God Anyway?

There are still holy places, holy times, services, events and activities. That is why modern Christianity is not freed from the old covenant, nor the temple that represented it. We are still very much in the temple mind set.

"When Christianity restricts God's presence to the sacred or denies God's presence outside the sacred, it mirrors an Enlightenment culture that crudely separated life into the secular and the religious, thereby making the omnipresence of God hard to experience."
(Leonard Sweet. Nudge. Pg 93)

So True.....

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt

Successful Failure?

This so describes my life.

"Success is the ability to go from one
failure to another with no loss of
enthusiasm." -W.Churchill

Be Careful Who You Talk To About Your Journey

I, like most of you, learned this lesson the hard way. Most people are not on your journey, and frankly in churches, most are critical of any journey other than the one that the member masses are on. They can't handle people doing something different. You are a distraction. Their strength is in uniformity, and conformity, which they conceal behind a terribly mistaken use of the word "unity". However, the few who listen, really listen, and offer insight, but in no way try to hijack your journey, are like water to a thirsty soul. Read what Richard Rohar said about this subject.

"Do not give to dogs what is holy, or throw your pearls before swine.They will trample them, and then they will turn on you and tear you to pieces" (Matthew 7:6). We can save ourselves a lot of distress and accusation by knowing when, where, to whom, and how to talk about spiritually mature things. We had best offer what each one is ready to hear, and perhaps only stretching them a bit! Ken Wilber says that most of us are only willing to call 5 percent of our present information into question at any one point—and again that is on a very good day. I guess prophets are those who do not care whether you are ready to hear their message. They say it because it has to be said and because it is true."
(Richard Rohr. Falling Upwards)

One Humiliation Per Day

”I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then I must watch my reaction to it."
(Richard Rohr. Calling Upward)

Dismiss The Soldier... Release Him/Her

"Normally we will not discharge our loyal soldier until he shows himself to be wanting, incapable, inadequate for the real issues of life—as when we confront love, death, suffering, subtlety, sin, mystery, and so on.  path to heaven....... Every initiation rite I studied worldwide was always about "dying before you die." When you first discharge your loyal soldier, it will feel like a loss of faith or loss of self. But it is only the death of the false self and is often the very birth of the soul. Instead of being ego driven, you will begin to be soul drawn."

(Richard Rohr. Falling Upward)

Just Smile And Wave Boys, Smile And Wave

"In fact, one of the best covers for very narcissistic people is to be polite, smiling,  and  thoroughly  civilized."

(Richard Rohr. Falling Upward)

Finding God

God is at work in everyone, we need eyes to see where and how.

"If you don't find God in the very next person you meet it is a waste of time looking for him further " (Ghandi)

Attention Please!

The best gift is attention.

"We have three things to spend in life: time, money, and attention. And the greatest of these is attention.

(Michael Blewett. Rector on Bowling Green Kentucky.) As told by Leonard Sweet in Nudge.

Show Up - But Shut Up

Great advice for life anywhere. Especially living and working in Africa.
Wish I had done more of it in my younger days.

"First, Watch: Show up, Slow Down, Shut up and Listen, and Wake Well." (Leonard Sweet. Nudge)

Africans Give and Give and Give

How true this is. They give so much more generously than we westerners do, even to strangers.

"I usually joke about my years spent in a West African village, as if they were simply a sweaty, stinky, rat eating, tummy cramping adventure, as if Afi and the villagers hadn't given their homes, their laughter, their grooves, their children, their food, their lives, as if they hadn't given and given and given their strength, their love, their spirit..."
(Monique Schmidt. Last Moon Dancing)

Seen Clearly.....On The Way out!

"You can see clearly something that is embedded in your culture only when it is in the act of receding into the historical distance." (J. Hillis Miller)

I've experienced this as of late. Been an interesting last seven years or so. Maybe it's just the age I'm at?

You begin to look back and question why was I sold that? You begin to then question why you bought it.
We are sold that giving up your time and energy for this, or that, is the best use of your life. They sell us that time spent this way  is best way for promotion, to make money, to please God, to build a church or organization, to grow something. to get success.  When really what it is all about is, this is what you must do to gain that group, organization, or institutions acceptance and approval.  Some of that approval and acceptance is not worth what you have to give up... Thought honestly, when you are there, you do not even know what it is costing you, what you are giving up to go down that road.

There is many things I used to spent my time doing, that i no longer doing, others  that are simply given significantly smaller amounts of my attention.

There are practices, beliefs, events, and habits i once had in my life, that now I have let go of....
As I saw them exit my life, there was a moment of tremendous clarity. A clarity I never had when immersed in that culture. Now they have been exposed for the error they are, the exhausting life draining treadmill of bondage, for no reason, and no good.

I challenge you to look too. Some of what you have been sold, and bought into, is keeping you busy, it serves the purpose of the institution or network you are part of. However, in the end does it give you life?  Drawing people into what you do, where you are. what you have, with how you feel about it; Come on; would you really wish that on anyone else?

If the answer is no, stop selling it, stop supporting it. Find a new way to live, a way to live that scatters real life to others.

Some things are only seen clearly, on the way out... 
You'll see!
AJ the International Nomad

Who Can Do The Journey?

But, many a church, pastor, leader, or 'clergy' try to map it all out for you. If you don't believe me, see the reaction when you chose not to follow their map.

"No Pope, Bible quote, psychological technique, religious formula, book, or guru can do your journey for you."
(Richard Rohr. Falling Upward)

Married To An African Village

Speaking of Zaire ( present Congo).

  ".... I couldn't go because I was really already married, not to a woman, but to this village and this land. I was already taken." (Mike Tidwell. The Ponds of  Kalambayi. Pg 215)

Africa Always Waits

Thought this was a well written paragraph. Its by Emma Jones, a returning MK struggling with being "home"..... But wanting to go back home to Africa. Was on her blog today.

"But home would always be there, waiting for me like I never left. Stuck in this golden halo of warmth and stillness. Nothing moved too fast, nothing demanded too much of me. Life flowed like honey, slow and sweet, not in a loud and chaotic rush of lights and blaring noises. It was patient and kind...
Africa always waited...."

Religious Imposition!

"The currency of the gospel of religion is fear and imposition. The currency of the gospel of Christ is love and invitation." (Leonard Sweet. Nudge, pg 21)

I think that I have experienced both sides now. People who preach and live a gospel of imposition. There "gospel commands" are burdensome.  They get very angry when you side step their ways, methods, power, leadership, tradition, or opinions. Question the good of their path or method... and you are in trouble. There is much fear and intimidation, and labeling in that camp. I dished it out myself, and I've received it too.

I am beginning to appreciate those who live the Gospel of love and invitation. I am not here to force anything on anyone. I am here to point to Jesus, to invite them to another look or glimpse. It's risky to point people to the foot of the cross, and leave them there. Jesus might just do something with them, without us. And I convinced he does do something when we get out of the way.

I don't want disciples formed in my image.....but his.
I invite you to take a look at him, certainly not me.

My Africa Life in Pictures

 This is a typical day in my life and work for five months each year.
I don't often post about what I do here in Africa.
But I am a fishing captain six months a year in Canada, and I am involved in community development work in Africa as a Director of Field operations for Man of Peace Development..
I can't post the names of the people or villages I work in. We work in an Islamic region....and  it is pretty rural and isolated. We have no 4#4 trucks etc, as we keep our overhead low, and our foot print small. So we have to use moto's to get in an out of the bush for our work. It's dusty, exhausting hard work, and I love it. We are just South of the Sahara Desert here...  This is what i see every day. Enjoy the peek......

Staying Motivated in Africa- Peace Corps Perspective

I though this girl summarized very well the daily struggle of living and working in rural Africa, for the newly arrived, and sometimes for the seasoned pro too.

"Volunteers spent a lot of time thinking they "deserved" little treats because life was hard. And life was difficult, but by choice. We had chosen to be here because we wanted to help and to grow. But amongst the latrine battles and the discipline battles and the intestinal battles, the festivals, the grand bieres, and the loneliness, it was difficult to remember to learn, difficult to remain open enough to learn. It was hard to push aside the mosquito net every morning and slide into underwear, stiff and holey from the local soap and hand-washing, to reread letters from friends talking about email mishaps and jazz concerts, hard to walk down the hallway to greet the maggots, and say, "Wow! Today I'm going to have the opportunity to learn." I constantly searched for the mind tricks to turn it all into a sitcom, marveling at the fact l had to have so many coping mechanisms. I had thought I was invincible."

(Last Moon Dancing: Memoir of Love and Real Life In Africa. Monique Schmidt. Pg 93)

We Don't Have Any Money! The Phrase Of Life In Africa

Life for many rural Africans I know. How many time have I heard this?

"Have you given him any medicine?" I asked.
"Yes, yes," he said. "We gave him aspirin and vitamins every day."
I shook my head.

“You know that's not enough. You've got to get him to a doctor. You've got to go to the mission hospital."

A look of shame and embarrassment crept onto Kanyenda's face. "Teta katuena ne falanga to," he said. "We don't have any money."

There they were. Those five words: "We don't have any money." They were permanently stitched to the sleeve of serious illness in Kalambayi, speaking like an epitaph for 90 percent of the chiefdom's dead and dying."

(Mike Tidwell. 'The Ponds is Kalambayi. pig 130)

Some Churches Dangerious To Our Health?

"Churches, by no means all but too many, have become as dangerous to the health of our soul as porn shops. People leave both superficially titillated and deeply numbed, Religious events can be as irrelevant to real life as cocktail parties at country clubs:..... Christian crusaders push for biblical literacy and expository preaching and abortion protesting and pron shop closing, and their words seem energized more by power-hungry moralism and grace-lacking legalism than by engagement with culture on behalf of a holy and loving God" 

(Larry Crabb, Soul Talk, pg 16)

Stunning Man.... Profound Vision .... Simply Executed!

This stunning photo was taken in the bush 30km SE of Sikasso, Mali ,West Africa.....near the Samogho village of Mandela. This amazing old man, Sankoro Traoré, is still planting orange and other fruit trees he will never live to harvest. This is in the Sahel, just south of the Sahara desert. Watering them is hard work here. This is an inspirational story of a man with a vision. We are now working with some old women and widows because of his vision. Drip irrigated gardens just south of the Sahara desert. That is my wife Lynn in the background. The most courageous woman I know. Driving on the back of a moto into the dusty bush with me... all to make a difference where few else will even go, even those with fancy 4*4 trucks with AC. 

WWW.manofpeacedevelopment.org

Respectable and Safe....

"Well, go on then. You don't want to be late. He doesn't approve of being late. Not that I ever was; in those days I was always on time. I was entirely respectable, and nothing unexpected ever happened."
(Bilbo Baggins- The Hobbit)

Little Good........!

"Do your little bit of good where you are. It's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." (Desmond Tutu)

Cautious Do Not Live!

"The brave may not live forever
but the cautious do not live at all."