shfleische's Blog

It's Sunny Again
Date: Jul 9th, 2007 6:47:32 am - Subscribe
Today's Wiki Topic: None...sad.

So it's sunny again for the first time in a week here in Kolkata. It doesn't get as warm up here in the north slums of the city as it does in the heart, but it's still pretty harsh. We're told that the amount of rain along with the flooding we recently witnessed is the worst this city has had in years. What great timing for us to be here! I had a short cold like everyone else here, but I got over mine in about two days and feel great now. Please pray for the rest of the team as most people are still suffering and can't even make it to their placements.

I've decided to forgoe my secondary placement at a Missionaries of Charity orphanage called Daya Dan in order to focus my entire day of work with CSSI (Compassion Service Society of India), an NGO. We have tons of work to do, but the best part is simply the community of the locals we get here and getting to know the children in the slums. In the mornings I have been teaching small children (3-7 yrs.) basic English through songs and games by a curriculum we designed. Now, in the afternoons I will be teaching some young adults in the slum English as well. They expressed their desire to learn to the community leaders after listening to the children speak more, and my heart goes out to them. English is essentially the language of business in India, and if you want to go anywhere or do anything of big effect, you must know it. They learn it fast because the limited schooling they have received has taught them to study harder than any US student. I'm just amazed.

This weekend we will go to the coast for a mid-trek retreat with a few of our close families here. It's wierd that we have less than three weeks left...it feels like we just got here. In a week, our CSSI team will probably travel to a village to see some of the micro-enterprise going on there and brainstorm with the town leaders about better ways to sustain the village's economic development. I'm learning so much, and I am definitely homesick and keep dreaming about next year. Thanks for all the prayers!
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Wow
Date: Jun 18th, 2007 11:42:32 pm - Subscribe
Today's Wiki Topic: Dredg

So I think I'm finally done with my Kolkata GUT webpage. You can view it at http://webpagemart.com/sf.

I usually don't get worried about trips, but this one is definitely different. Especially after getting my placement on Sunday and being seriously surprised, I don't know what else to do at this point...and that's a weird feeling. All I can do is have fun I guess!

Kolkata, here I come!

Well, I'll post once more before I leave.
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Continuation (written May 31, 2007)
Date: Jun 3rd, 2007 2:55:23 pm - Subscribe
Today's Wiki Topic: Guster

God has been working at his job for a really, really long time. In the midst of his job description -- rescue, redemption, creation, salvation, providence -- is us. That's cool.

Because God's been doing this for so long, we are individually parts of a continuing saga. In Genesis 2, the Hebrew writers give us some of those laborious name lists that we all love. And at the end of this, they tell us that Terah, Abram's father, just packs up and leaves Ur for Haran, and dies there. Afterwards come the huge stories we've heard in Sunday School about Abram and his calling and all that jazz.

I think I've had it wrong for a long time. I always thought that Abram received his calling, packed up, and left Ur. But Terah did that with no special mention about calling or anything. Cool.

God had already put things in motion, and with only slight mention. Terah began God's work in Abram's life (besides being his father) before all the momentous stuff even really occurred. I have a feeling God does this a lot, and I really don't notice it that often.

In Ecclesiastes, the writer talks about this, saying "there's nothing new under the sun." I think maybe this guy saw so many things as being a continuation of God's work, God's causality, so he may have understood this in a very unique way. I don't think this is depressing, though that is a temptation when thinking about this continuation idea. It seems that the writer went through that, and later recognizes this continuing work as a truth to remember and inspire us to take a look at God's glory. For some reason, he liked the big picture.

John the Baptist isn't a huge figure, but he certainly performs a similar role. He prepares Jesus' coming. No big deal.

I wonder how much God has done that in my life, and how much he's using my life as a continuing work for others to come. Makes me feel a little special, fo sho.
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Order and Disorder (written May 29, 2007)
Date: Jun 1st, 2007 12:03:57 pm - Subscribe
Today's Wiki Topic: Silmarillion by Tolkein

Sometimes I just have the feeling that some things are wrong. For instance, I can walk through a hallway, and without really noticing, I feel the entire hallway is out of whack because one picture is lop-sided -- it's out of order with the other pictures. I think a lot of us feel this.

I sometimes marvel at cathedrals, their construction and detail. Years ago, Europeans thought to experience God's glory through whole numbers (symbolizing completeness) on a large scale.

The Ancient Hebrews saw this glory as well. There is significance in every number and every word of the Old Testament. Every letter is connected to a number, and those numbers all add up, multiply, and divide into...perfect...numbers.

It's amazing that people have known this glory deep in their bones for so long, and we all kind of know it and sense it.

In Genesis 8, Noah offers up some sacrifices to God of the animals he just saved, and it says that God was pleased with this aroma. Gross. Anyways, yet again, God covenants with humankind without anything in return -- this time not to "dishonor" the land by destroying every living thing because of the evil of man. Then, God promises something even more interesting: he says that while the Earth is still around, the patterns of the world and nature shall not cease. God promises this. Why?

I think something is revealed directly afterwards. God gives Noah's family authority over essentially everything on Earth. He already did this for Adam, but God reaffirms it again here. He even offers a sign of this covenant in the rainbow, so this has got to be important.

I think God is saying that he wants us to have responsibility, and that he's prepared us for it. He gave order and patterns and consistency to life. So what does it say when we witness chaos? Have we lost control? Are we responsible for it?

I can't help but to connect this idea to global warming. You see, for millions of years, the world has breathed-in and sighed-out, warmed and cooled. But for some reason, in the past half century, this pattern of predictability has gone far beyond anything in the Earth's history as we know it. Carbon levels, sea life, monsoons, hurricanes, and the increasingly alternating years of rainfall and drought are wreaking havoc on billions of years of order and predictability.

The Nile River Valley is a narrow strip of life in a huge desert, and always has been. The civilizations around the Nile gained prominence because of the predictability of its floods. Many scholars think the Flood story and the Epic of Gilgamesh came about because of the massive, devastating, and unpredictable floods of the Tigris and Euphrates. There is no similar aura of chaos in Ancient Egyptian mythology and culture, whereas they're important in Mesopotamia.

My point is this: we've been given authority over an ordered existence that is gradually moving towards disorder -- and that chaos is scary and deadly and lasting. In the Silmarillion by Tolkein, in the creation myth based on music, Satan is represented by dissonance, as beautiful as it is, and it takes over everything and has to be cast away for the sake of harmony. When we're irresponsible and neglect things like the environment and developing countries where terrorists are easily recruited, we end up getting fearful and responding in kind. I'm not sure this is good or healthy, given the admiration of God revealed through order, and we have to find a way to counter the chaos we've caused.
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Rescue (written May 24, 2007)
Date: Jun 1st, 2007 12:14:51 am - Subscribe
Today's Wiki Topic: Vegetable

We need rescue -- liberation. I really don't know anyone who thinks that all things are alright. Even people who are generally content with the world, like my friend Henry Morgan, still recognize and admit that things just aren't cool sometimes. Is this a natural inclination that comes with simple human awareness? Or is this something learned and experienced? Both? Why would god design things to where only a hope of escape provides us with future sometimes? How does this hope still exist in the most desolate slum communities?

I have trouble admitting that God rescued Lot but killed so many other people to show this liberation. Surely Lot didn't deserve rescue so much more above everyone else. But who am I to ask these things? What have I seen or experienced to warrant these worries?

Maybe some sort of answer lies in the patterns and dualities of life. You can't have the beauty of liberation without slavery, the character of hope without despair. After watching "The Fountain," it made sense to me that we see life as a product of death in nature's cycles.

Ultimately, though, I have a sense that the true liberation/salvation/whateveryouwanttocallit comes from leaving this cycle. I know this idea is inherent in Buddhism, but I feel it's inherent in Jesus as well. How have we cheapened salvation by limiting it to a concept of afterlife?
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