Adventures in missing the point

Apparently working for good in the world is a messy game. So far, that’s what I’ve observed from my distant vantage point to the Invisible Children KONY2012 campaign launch.

I have friends that have worked on some of the intimate details of this campaign, and I have friends that are deeply invested in the entire IC movement, so in the next few paragraphs I’m attempting to give balance between my personal thoughts and my knowledge of their passion for impacting the world.

So…here we go…I’ll make a few simple points, then offer a simple conclusion. I hope this response is different than all the others you’ve read.

1. Everyone is broken.

Profound, isn’t it? Maybe not, but this reality is so easily breezed past in our quest to draw conclusions. As long we all exist together upon the earth in its current state, everything we do will be flawed, and it’s simply irresponsible to expect a group of broken, imperfect people to come up with the perfect solution.

2. Everyone has expectations.

And somewhere along the line, someone’s expectations won’t be met. Maybe a lot of someone’s expectations won’t be met. But as Anne Lamott says, “Expectations are resentments under construction.”

When surprising moments like the KONY2012 film happen, suddenly the landscape of conversation and opinion becomes littered with so many (often unfairly projected) expectations it’s difficult to wade through them back to the point.

The point is: people are broken…and some broken people hurt/kill other broken people…which awakens a desire in more broken people to step in and do something about it. But, in the end, it’ll never quite meet expectations…and then again, broken expectations should never be a litmus test for how much value should be placed on a person’s life.

3. Everyone disappoints.

I can only imagine right now that Ben, Jason and other influencers at IC must have thousands of thoughts swirling in their minds and hearts about things they should have thought of, situations they should have handled differently, words they should/shouldn’t have said. After all, getting 75 million hits on YouTube isn’t their end game.

Passion is a powerful, beautiful gift, and sometimes it can cloud even the most sound of judgement.

There’s always room for course correction/revision. If they’ve disappointed you, be honest, but be careful not to block the invaluable flow of conversation. Our goal should be to help each other improve in our work and calling, not find ways to undercut in a crucial moment.

4. Everyone counts.

This is especially true for the people of Northern Uganda, South Sudan, and portions of DR Congo and CAR. Just as they haven’t let the murderous legacy of Joseph Kony stop them, we cannot let a 30-minute YouTube film that’s not completely agreeable to some stop us. In the West, we’re notorious for a) jumping on bandwagons, and b) drawing conclusions and voicing polarizing opinions too hastily.

For those with strong opinions for or against (or even of indifference toward) the movement: what are you doing to impact the world? And by world, I don’t necessarily mean Africa. Are you investing your life in the people around you? Your community?

It’s difficult to take people seriously when I hear them voicing strong opinions but come to find out they aren’t actively giving of themselves in any way.

Talk is easy…but don’t talk unless you also do.

Perhaps the most important thing we should do at this moment is stop talking and listen.

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Honestly, I, too, have concerns about all of this.

I’m concerned that it’ll become “just another hyped up thing”. (Because we’re pretty good at that in America.)

I’m concerned that a NGO is participating in assisting a military operation. (However nuanced their participation might be.)

I’m concerned that the people at the very center of this story (in the African nations affected) will be ultimately left out.

I’m concerned too much time and attention and resources might be spent on the wrong things.

I’m concerned about a renewed “saviour” mentality. (i.e., here we come to fix all your problems because we’ve decided you can’t fix them yourselves.)

But…

I’m hopeful that the KONY2012 campaign has awakened an incredibly healthy conversation about how we can work together for genuine good in the world. Warlords like Joseph Kony simply must understand that these kinds of brutal legacies will not go unnoticed any longer.

I’m hopeful this will lead to healing and restoration of thousands affected by brutal injustice in the focal region.

I’m hopeful we can take what IC has started and make it better with time. Just like companies produce better / updated versions of their products, so we must produce better versions of our humanitarian efforts as well.

I’m hopeful, and I pray you are as well.

Working for good is messy, and we get it wrong…often. But snuffing out the flame of injustice is always a worthy cause, as long as our personal pride or ideology doesn’t overshadow the ones we’re investing in along the way.

Human trafficking, child soldiers, and sex slavery are three abhorrent practices that cannot ever become acceptable. I believe Invisible Children at the very least has raised that point well.

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts (they’ll probably get edited along the way)…I’d love to hear yours…

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“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” // 1 Peter 4:8

The rest of the 99%

We stepped through the crumbling doorframe and there she was, atop plastic and foam, draped in a sheet from home.

Concerned eyes.

A beautiful 16 year old girl named Ruth.

“Kale Ssebo, (you are welcome, sir)” a voice beside her said. It was Ruth’s mother, perched on a small stool between her daughter and 1-day-old grandson, Moses.

“Oli otya, mama? (How are you?),” I asked.

“I am fine, how are you?”, she answered, in fantastic English.

“I’m doing well,” I said, “we’ve come for some observations today at the hospital and they’ve told us about you. What has happened?”

She stood and began quietly rustling through the carefully organized belongings she had brought from their village. Out came a small stack of papers. She leaned closer to me and shared their story.

Her daughter had gone into labor the day before, so she brought her to the hospital for delivery. Because of several complications, they ended up performing an emergency C-section, and in the process had also rupture her large intestine. The problem was, they didn’t expect any qualified surgeons to be available to repair the damage for another week…so there they were.

Then she showed me Ruth’s wounds. The landscape of her body would never be quite the same again.

While most 16 year old girls I know are studying for high school or socializing, Ruth now had a newborn, and both of them already been abandoned by the baby’s father.

But Ruth’s mother was incredible. Faithful, caring, ready for anything.

I never heard one complaint, only patience and love…because no matter what happened, baby Moses was here. He was their new beginning.

Nakaseke Hospital in Central Uganda is a place I’ve been several times, always dreaming of ways to somehow change these stories.

From the ambulance outside that hasn’t worked in 10 years, to the rusted hospital beds that haven’t been replaced in 25. There’s a list of a million things…IV stands…cleaning supplies…OR trays…linens…even just a hospital bed for everyone so patients don’t have to lay on the floor awaiting treatment.

In the States we’ve been hearing a lot about the 99% recently. A lot about greed, corruption, Wall Street, the poor…

And I get it…there are some major issues that must be faced and dealt with.

But…

Something breaks in me when I step through a sunlit doorframe and come face to face with a story like Ruth.

She has no idea what kind of statistical category she’s in. And there’s no reason to put her in a category anyway, her life and story don’t belong in some numbers column…she’s a created being after all.

Still, in that moment when I stood by her mother, gripping baby Moses’s tiny fist, it was all too clear who the 99% was…and it wasn’t me.

I’ll pretty sure I’ll never be able to reform Wall Street or convince the government to quit its addiction to crony corruption, but…I can still give myself to the least of these.

So I am.

Join me.

Let’s occupy injustice.

Would you like to go with us to these places? Would you like to help us change these stories? Would you like your story to be completely rewritten in the process?

Shoot me an email…we’ve much to talk about…

matt@safeworldnexus.org

Baby Moses & Ruth

I love al Qaeda…and you should too?

There goes Matt Chambers again…saying crazy stuff…

Sort of…

So, what do I have to say for myself? Well, a few things…

But before we begin knitting together a perspective I pray is forged in Christ-likeness, I’d like to offer this thought from German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.”

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During his time among us, Jesus broke cultural, religious and philosophical ranks on many topics, but for me, one in particular stands out. It’s one we wrestle with in the Church frequently…and it’s the basis for accusations, splits, and a myriad of disagreements.

As I mentioned in my last post (if you haven’t read it yet, please take a moment), in Scripture, love is always tied to sacrifice. Love is generous.

Jesus has invited us to be different. Really different.

To love our enemies…

Bless those who curse us…

Pray for those who abuse us…

You’ve no doubt read those passages, heard them invoked multiple times, and probably already have an opinion on what exactly they mean.

In our cultures faith and politics are quite heavily mixed, and it’s too easy for political language to dominate a conversation that is meant to be holy.

For example…(and each of these is fed by a particular ideology):

“But they hate us and are trying to destroy us!”

“But shouldn’t we step in and defend when someone is hurting someone else?”

“But we must side with Israel! Period!”

“But they took prayer out of the schools!”

“But they don’t care about the poor!”

“But they are destroying the earth!”

“But that could ruin traditional marriage!”

I’m mentioning these lines only because I hear them the most often in conversation. My point is, I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t know someone they’re in opposition to. The call of Jesus then becomes how we respond.

In the Gospel of Luke chapter 6, if you keep reading past the first admonishment to love out enemies, Jesus steps up His game a bit: “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them!”

Ouch.

Reading that in today’s context comes across like this…

Loving your wife isn’t unexpected…loving al Qaeda sets you apart.

The heart of this idea is what Dallas Willard calls an “active generosity toward those who harm [us] or are hostile to [us].”

Who actually lives like that?

It’s not about pacifism or relativism…liberalism or conservatism…it’s about making sure the banner of the Kingdom of God is always raised higher in our lives than any other.

We shouldn’t love because we are expecting a suicide bomber to magically end his diabolical quest, we love because Christ first loved us. I suspect many times we think God needs us to handle His business for Him…but people are His business…and love is His foundation.

Love is our foundation as we seek to defend the weak.

Love is our foundation as we encounter evil.

Love is our foundation as we fend off injustice.

Love is our foundation as we lift high the cross for the world to find rescue.

I’m really not sure what loving al Qaeda totally looks like, but Psalm 23 says God prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies, and my prayer is that I will always make room for them to sit down.

So may we find ourselves in “the thick of foes”, armed to the teeth with love.

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“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.” // G.K. Chesterton

Painting by Scott Erickson

Mobs vs. Movements // a theory

Here I am again, writing again about things I feel so far from doing well.

And that’s probably the way it will always be.

When I was trying to decide whether to start blogging regularly, one of the internal debates I kept having was, “The world is already overloaded with voices / information / noise…there’s simply not room for any more.”

And that’s partially true.

Every moment of the day we are inundated with more…well, everything. (I have a slight addiction to infographics because they’re pretty much awesome.)

Everybody is promoting something.

Read this…vote for that…react to this…protest for that…stop this…start that.

It seems that words like injustice, cause, revolution, change and many others have become conversational regulars.

No matter who I talk to, everyone has something worthwhile they seem to be advocating for.

Some of these uprisings can end up drawing millions of people into the ring.

But something I’ve noticed is, the attention span of the “trending generation” is getting shorter and shorter. One example that comes to mind is when I sat glued to the updates of a friend of mine who lives near Tahir Square in Cairo, Egypt as throngs protested day after day. But over time, interest faded, and I’ve only recently been trying to catch back up on what’s happened since.

I suppose we could blame the 24-hour news cycle or something, but I’ve been mulling over another theory…

I believe we’ve become experts at creating mobs, and neglected to foster movements.

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, Mark Twain wrote, “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass.”

Mobs tend to lean toward hype…movements are built by heart.

Mobs get lots of attention…movements create change.

Mobs are more like a one-night stand…movements are a long-term commitment.

Part of the problem is that we are not doing a very good job of really teaching people how to care about things. Information is great, but learning how to truly love something is what makes the difference.

I’ve personally observed the struggle of mob vs. movement from church communities to humanitarian causes and everything in between.

This is one of the reasons Paul penned the famous “Love Chapter” to the church at Corinth.

Because knowing and doing without loving only adds to the noise.

We don’t need more people hyped up only to get burnt out and move on before the work really gets started. We need people who care.

But caring and loving that leads to change starts with us. And we love “Because [God] first loved us.” // 1 John 4:19

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As I said in the beginning, this is a concept I’m very much still learning. In fact, even this blog post feels like a rough draft of ideas that will continue to be refined over time and with the input of others. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

What are your thoughts on teaching people to really care and love?

How do we create movements instead of mobs?