Now that we were based in Wedza, it was no longer a big deal to get to the rural areas--we lived in the rural areas. The rural areas held a sort of mystique. Since the end of the war rural Zimbabweans were free to leave what had been Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs).
Under white minority-rule, blacks were restricted to the TTLs. Living in the white-ruled urban centers required a job. Urban residency for blacks was usually in servant's quarters or in townships on the outskirts of town. A township was a high-density suburb composed of thousands of one-room cement-brick buildings with tin or asbestos roofs. This housing was no better than servant's quarters. The only advantage it had was that it also had small shops and beer halls that catered to the African working class. The townships were and still are not very nice places to live.
With independence, Zimbabweans flocked by the hundreds of thousands to the urban centers with the hope of a better living. But, nothing really changed in the cities. Sure, a few black government officials and others who had begun to accumulate wealth were able to purchase some of the formerly white-owned homes in the suburbs. However, most blacks just ended up in the ever-expanding townships that surrounded cities such as Harare.
Under black majority-rule, the rural areas benefited from government support and a massive infusion of capital and resources. The TTLs had been the heart of the insurgency and had suffered the most from the fighting. It was in these lands that insurgents had found succor and from which the insurgency drew its resources, both willing and unwilling. Rural citizens were in the crossfire. The ideal of black self-government appealed to many, but the tactics of intimidation and frequent insurgent-led massacres were matched by intimidation and threat of death at the hands of white-ruled government's Security Forces. The sad truth is that this was not simply a matter of white versus black. For the rural people, it was often black insurgents demanding allegiance at the pain of torture and death versus black and white government forces who also demanded allegiance.
During the war the surrounding white farms were armed camps. The white farmers walled off their residences with security fences topped with razor-wire. Every white family was well-armed and had the Security Forces to come to their rescue.
The black farm workers lived outside the fence and found themselves constantly forced to feed and shelter the guerrillas. During the day, the whites dominated. At night, no one moved lest they be caught in the crossfire.
For those who lived in the city, violent incidents were rare until the very end of the war. But for rural areas such as Wedza, violence was their constant companion. With the ceasefire and subsequent elections, the reputation of rural areas as the sacred center of the liberation struggle had been firmly established in the minds of blacks and whites alike.
Wedza was prototypical. Old mission stations had been renovated as government-run schools. Bus stops became centers of commerce. The Wedza administrative center was the headquarters for the police, the local ZANU-PF Patriotic Front Communist Party and the place where building, business, education and all types of permits were processed.
Rural society was no longer based strictly on a tribal model. Tribe was still a factor, especially with regard to land ownership and burial rights. However, the new model was "communal" with the people from different families bonding together to work communal projects such as farms and businesses. Rural areas that had been restrictive for Africans during Rhodesia were now transformed into a social experiment rooted in African pride united with the socialist ideals of the liberation struggle.
The dirt roads that led from the main highways to the major business centers were now paved. It was no longer necessary to travel the 90-minute ride to the white-owned businesses in Marondera to get seed, fertilizer or building materials. These were now available in strategic locations throughout Wedza.
All black Zimbabweans were entitled to ownership of land in the former TTLs. And, although it was possible for black Zimbabweans to purchase the white-owned farms that surrounded the former TTLs, whites were not allowed to purchase land in Wedza. In 1984, most of the surrounding farms were still owned by whites such as Dave Hess. There were just a few farms that had been purchased by blacks. This status quo would continue until 2000 when the twenty-year Lancaster House Agreement that had led to majority rule elections in 1980 had expired. At that time, Prime Minister Mugabe encouraged his former comrades-in-arms to dig up their old weapons caches and take many of the white farms by force. Twenty years later the international community was no longer paying attention.
There were few Christians who cared about the black African workers living in brick, mud and thatch huts on white-owned farms. We were invited to come minister to the workers by the white farm owners since we lived just down the "Tobacco Road" and word was passed from worker to worker about our meetings, our films and our singing. We were the only entertainment in the neighborhood! The African farm workers seemed to like us. So, as we sought to "plant" church groups on farms, the white owners saw us keeping their labor force happy. Actually, I don't think most of them cared at all about the spiritual condition of their workers--they just thought that whatever we did would "pacify" them.
Most missionaries and Christian ministries in general focused on the urban centers in Zimbabwe. The urban centers boasted large population centers. In addition, working in the urban centers meant that ministries could enjoy the post-colonial way of life that was still thriving. To venture out onto the farms and the frightening rural areas was rare. After all, farm workers didn't make much money and didn't represent a financial base for a church. It was much better to stay in Harare and focus on ministry to whites and up-and-coming blacks. Ministries run on money and the city was where the money was.
Over the next few months we established a pattern of ministry on farms on weeknights. Norman would then follow-up with Bible studies on those farms on Sundays. We quickly had six farm churches "planted" with Norman taking the itinerant teaching role.
On weekdays we would meet with area pastors. I started holding "Schools of Ministry" several days a week for young men who showed promise as leaders. Our hope was to base the "graduates" on various farms to serve as pastors for the new congregations. Norman would lend supervision and guidance to the younger men.
We also held Bible studies and led Sunday services for white farmers and their families. Most of these were part of a small church that Dave had been helping lead for several years. Working with the white Zimbabweans allowed me to teach in English for a cultural group to whom I could relate. At the same time, the evangelistic work among the blacks contributed to my sense of "mission."
On some Sunday evenings we would make the two-hour drive to Harare to attend worship services at Rhema. Their contemporary style musical worship appealed to Pegi and me and gave us an opportunity to be "off-duty" for a little while.
However, we still had not really penetrated to the center of Wedza. We had made a few visits with Felix to his childhood home and had met some of the more prominent citizens. It was time for us stretch out from the Tobacco Road farms to reach the larger populations in Wedza-proper. We made plans with Felix to travel to the administrative center to get all the necessary permissions to minister in Wedza. We borrowed Dave's pickup and drove to Police HQ where we were introduced to the Police Commissioner.
The Commissioner had the rank of colonel and invited us in for tea. We explained to him our desire to proclaim the Christian gospel. He had that suspicious air of authority which always makes me feel nervous, as if I was some sort of criminal trying to sneak in to Wedza. However, after a 30-minute conversation in English, he gave us permission to speak in schools, homes and to even hold outdoor meetings.
At the Commissioner's suggestion, our next visit was to the home of the local Communist Party Political Commissar. He turned out to be a former Methodist pastor. When invited into his study for tea, he wanted to know specifically what we were going to be teaching. So, I gave him a simple explanation of how Jesus had died for his sins and that faith in Jesus as his substitute freed him from penalty of sin. This is pretty straightforward Christian doctrine, so I was surprised when he showed interest as if he had never heard such a thing before!
I was carrying a Bible and started to show him some passages. When he saw my Bible, he got excited saying, "Oh! I have several Bibles!" He then reached onto a shelf under his desk and pulled out an old leather Bible from a stack of books and literally blew a thick layer of dust off of it before opening it! This was really strange to me. It wasn't that a minister was head of the local communist party. I could understand that as I had never bought into the idea that being a Christian made you a capitalist. I simply wondered what he had taught as a Methodist minister all those years if it wasn't from the Bible!
I knew that were many ministers from a variety of Christian denominations who were not Christians the way I understood it. But to think that he really had not even a rudimentary knowledge of the Gospels in the Bible--that was strange to me at the time.
Since that time, I have learned by experience that being raised in a religious tradition, even being a religious professional, guarantees nothing in the way of common understanding. We live in a diverse world and people go to different places in their minds based on their life experiences. I encounter this daily teaching my students of world religions. I have met Christians who don't understand the importance of the resurrection, Jews who don't ever think about God, (including a Rabbi who is an atheist), Muslims who don't understand the Five Pillars, Hindus and Buddhists who don't believe in karma, etc.)
After praying with the Methodist minister/Political Commissar to accept Jesus as his personal savior, we left his home, not only with the necessary permissions, but with his offer to use the local Youth Brigade of the Communist Party as ushers for an outdoor meeting. I was hesitant about using the Youth Brigade as ushers as I felt they might intimidate the audience, but thanked him and departed.
We began to plan to return the next week with Norman, Felix and a few other young African ministers to have five days of meetings culminating in a Saturday evening outdoor meeting about a kilometer from the bus stop. We would need a tent as it was now June and the beginning of winter. It happened that I had made contact with the leaders of the African Evangelical Fellowship who had a Bible school in the Highfield township of Harare. They also had a large tent that we could use which could be transported in a pickup truck. With the flaps of the tent raised, we could squeeze 500-800 people inside.
This was going to be exciting! It would be our first time to conduct a meeting "under the Big Top."
Next: But You Were Invited!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Tobacco Road
May, 1984 -- Wedza, Zimbabwe
Dave and Jen Hess's dairy farm in Wedza overlooked a river valley and low mountains in the distance. To say the place was idyllic is an understatement. At their invitation, we moved in to a thatched-roof one-room cottage that had an attached bathroom. It was one of two out-buildings that shared that valley view with the main house.
At an altitude of about 4000 ft, it was pleasantly warm during the days and cool in the evenings. During the winter months, (June - August in the southern hemisphere), you needed a light jacket and there was always a roaring fire in the main building. On those evenings, it got a bit chilly in our cottage since it did not have a fireplace, so we found ourselves "dressing" for sleep!
What was not idyllic was the colony of red ants who had burrowed into the hillside underneath the cottage. Dave had injected poison into the colony to kill the ants as the red ant bite is painful. We didn't encounter any living ants, but would find our cottage floor covered in dead ants each evening after midnight. The dying ants would surface through cracks in the foundation each evening seeking air on their final journey of death. That meant that we couldn't leave shoes, suitcases, boxes or anything else on the floor at night. And, it meant that a midnight or early morning excursion out of bed required grabbing a pair of shoes off the nightstand to noisily crunch a path across the floor. It also meant dressing for breakfast in bed. By the time we would return from breakfast, one of the household "helpers" would have swept the floor clean.
But, let's speak of more pleasant subjects--breakfast! Breakfast on a dairy farm was early, 6:00 am, but worth losing some sleep. A typical morning would include oatmeal with fresh cream so thick you could literally stand a fork in it, eggs, beef sausage, toast with jam, guava and other fruit in-season, and tea or coffee with a "slice" of that thick dairy cream. It was a good thing that I was getting plenty of exercise or my arteries would have turned to sludge! But, oh was it good!!!
After breakfast and a bath in water heated in a 50 gallon drum over a wood fire, (I can still smell the woodsmoke!), Pegi and I would meet with Norman Kalilombe to discuss upcoming ministry on the surrounding farms.
Dave's farm struggled financially because the price of milk could not support the cost of running a modern dairy farm. Most of the farms in in Wedza were still white-owned, but the ones that were the most profitable grew tobacco. Dave had settled in Wedza after moving from South Africa during the '70s. Of course, he arrived as the insurgency against white-ruled Rhodesia began to get out of control. His purpose in moving to Wedza had been to establish a evangelistic outpost. As such, he resisted the temptation to grow the very profitable and sanctions-busting crop, tobacco.
Tobacco remained one of Rhodesia's and later Zimbabwe's major cash crops. Alistair Forbes, in whose home we had stayed many months in Harare worked for British-American Tobacco as a senior accountant. Most Christians in Zimbabwe considered smoking to be a sin. This made working for a tobacco company problematic for Alistair, but not nearly as bad as the impact that being a tobacco grower would have had on Dave's "testimony" in Wedza. Of course, smoking among the African population was endemic. It was one of the few "pleasures" along with beer that was available to the African populace, especially in the rural areas.
The concept of smoking as sinful arises from the Pauline teaching that the Christian's body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit of God." As such, smoking was seen as "defiling" that temple. In the US, smoking was rarely considered an issue among Christians. But, in Zimbabwe, smoking was a big deal.
Most of the prosperous farms in Wedza grew either tobacco or maize (corn). Dave's property wasn't quite suitable for growing maize as the quality of maize he could grow in his hilly and rocky fields was only adequate as feed for his cows.
The really big money was in tobacco, a hardy crop that could grow in hilly soil and was drought-resistant. Zimbabwe had endured drought conditions for three years in 1984. Only the tobacco farmers were turning a profit.
Dave and Norman had already established a small church among the 70+ workers on his dairy farm. Therefore, Norman and I turned our attention to the surrounding tobacco farms to "plant" new church groups that we hoped Norman would be able to supply itinerant ministry.
We began holding evening meetings on the surrounding tobacco farms. We knew that there was some attraction-power that Pegi and I could provide. After all, for the last few decades, the only white people who had shown up in the African worker compounds were the farm owners and Security Forces during the war. Neither was cause for rejoicing. The farm owner was the "boss" and the Security Forces were rooting out terrorists. Since the terrorists had found succor (willing and unwilling) in the worker compounds, the Security Forces suspected every African worker as a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer.
Pegi and I came to share our faith and to care for the African population. Pegi and I would lead Shona Christian choruses and perform a couple of American Christian songs that seemed to please our audiences.
One song, "From Glory to Glory" (written by American artists, The Hendricks Family), became our signature song. Over the coming months and even years as we ministered throughout Zimbabwe, young children would come up to us singing lyrics from that song. We didn't sing it particularly well, our harmonies were often comprised by very sore throats and my 12-string guitar was a bear to keep tuned. Nevertheless, we were asked to sing this song wherever we went. We even found ourselves asked to sing this song at weddings of people we hardly knew. Rhema Church which had not been interested in our ministry and arguably had the best contemporary Christian music in Zimbabwe even asked us to perform it! I still don't get it!
But, we felt we needed more firepower when it came to reaching a Shona-speaking crowd. Yes, I could speak and have Norman or someone else interpret, but I really had no idea how to reach the locals. I came from another world!
We had been given a film of a Dutch evangelistic crusade that had been dubbed into Shona. We also had been given a 16 mm movie projector when we were in South Africa. Showing a movie of any kind drew huge crowds in urban and rural settings. So, after singing for a while, we would show the hour-long film. The evangelist in the film was T.L. Osborn, an American Pentacostal preacher who claimed a miracle ministry in his mass crusades. The audience in the film was well over 50,000 and the focus after the preaching was on the dozens of people who came forward claiming to have been dramatically healed during the preaching.
Now, I think I probably watched that film fifty times--not once was I convinced that this "show" from a Holland in the 1960s was believable. Yet, somehow I had bought into the belief that miracles could happen and thought that people in our audiences would find faith in God by watching. How silly this was! People watched simply because it was the "only show in town." But, what actually had lasting effect was Pegi and me singing a few songs from our hearts.
So What About Miracles?
Some time in 1983, we had begun to consider the possibility that the miracles associated with Jesus' ministry might have been something that modern Christians could expect. Looking back on this now, it is hard for me to remember just exactly it was that persuaded me to see validity in the Jesus' ministry, more less to become a follower of Jesus. I refer you to my earlier blogs where I relate all of this.
In 2011, a good dozen years since I had considered myself a Christian of any sort and now defining my Jewish spirituality in a way that I couldn't conceive in the '80s, it is even harder to explain why I expected miracles associated with our gospel ministry. I think it just boils down to being convinced that if Jesus was to be taken at face value for what he said as recorded in the gospel accounts, then we should see potential of the miraculous in any Christian ministry.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father." John 14:12
We had begun to seek out fellowship with others who also expected the miraculous. This is what led us into charismatic circles to begin with. We never really saw any real evidence of healing. However, we appreciated the commitment to an active faith that many charismatics seemed to express. Yet, it wasn't the promise of the miraculous that kept us in charismatic circles. It was the music! Charismatic churches were using popular and light rock music to change the nature of their worship services. Music was something that Pegi and I both related to strongly. I had grown up in a household where my mother played jazz piano by ear and I had begun playing guitar just before the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Dave Clark Five led the musical "British Invasion." Pegi had grown up loving music and spending years finding peace and solace playing piano.
Our ministry was really based around music as I rarely had the chance to teach anything that was beyond a superficial gospel message. So, even though there were several who claimed to be healed by our ministry, and bunches more who claimed to be healed after watching the Shona-dubbed TL Osborn film, those kinds of miracles didn't keep our attention.
Unfortunately, many of our supporters saw miracles as the attestation of the legitimacy of our ministry and so we seemed to always lead our newsletters with something that hinted at the miraculous. (I always wondered what my Jewish agnostic mother thought of those newsletters! We never discussed that subject, but I am sure she was relieved when our newsletters began to focus on our baby, Abigail. She was the only "miracle" that mattered to us from 1986 on.)
It was only as I reflected on these events much later that I realized that we didn't need that film at all. Our compassion and love for people was what had a lasting impact. And, although I am embarrassed to think about the crazy things that we presented as truth, such as that film or "miracle ministry" in general, I smile when I think about the heart-filled and lasting response to our simple and amateurish singing.
Faith is a matter of the heart. Communication of faith in God occurs neither by reasoning (theological argument) nor by empirical demonstration (miracles). It is communicated heart-to-heart from person-to-person. If I learned anything on the tobacco road, I learned that.
Next: Under the Big Top
Dave and Jen Hess's dairy farm in Wedza overlooked a river valley and low mountains in the distance. To say the place was idyllic is an understatement. At their invitation, we moved in to a thatched-roof one-room cottage that had an attached bathroom. It was one of two out-buildings that shared that valley view with the main house.At an altitude of about 4000 ft, it was pleasantly warm during the days and cool in the evenings. During the winter months, (June - August in the southern hemisphere), you needed a light jacket and there was always a roaring fire in the main building. On those evenings, it got a bit chilly in our cottage since it did not have a fireplace, so we found ourselves "dressing" for sleep!
What was not idyllic was the colony of red ants who had burrowed into the hillside underneath the cottage. Dave had injected poison into the colony to kill the ants as the red ant bite is painful. We didn't encounter any living ants, but would find our cottage floor covered in dead ants each evening after midnight. The dying ants would surface through cracks in the foundation each evening seeking air on their final journey of death. That meant that we couldn't leave shoes, suitcases, boxes or anything else on the floor at night. And, it meant that a midnight or early morning excursion out of bed required grabbing a pair of shoes off the nightstand to noisily crunch a path across the floor. It also meant dressing for breakfast in bed. By the time we would return from breakfast, one of the household "helpers" would have swept the floor clean.
But, let's speak of more pleasant subjects--breakfast! Breakfast on a dairy farm was early, 6:00 am, but worth losing some sleep. A typical morning would include oatmeal with fresh cream so thick you could literally stand a fork in it, eggs, beef sausage, toast with jam, guava and other fruit in-season, and tea or coffee with a "slice" of that thick dairy cream. It was a good thing that I was getting plenty of exercise or my arteries would have turned to sludge! But, oh was it good!!!
After breakfast and a bath in water heated in a 50 gallon drum over a wood fire, (I can still smell the woodsmoke!), Pegi and I would meet with Norman Kalilombe to discuss upcoming ministry on the surrounding farms.
Dave's farm struggled financially because the price of milk could not support the cost of running a modern dairy farm. Most of the farms in in Wedza were still white-owned, but the ones that were the most profitable grew tobacco. Dave had settled in Wedza after moving from South Africa during the '70s. Of course, he arrived as the insurgency against white-ruled Rhodesia began to get out of control. His purpose in moving to Wedza had been to establish a evangelistic outpost. As such, he resisted the temptation to grow the very profitable and sanctions-busting crop, tobacco.
Tobacco remained one of Rhodesia's and later Zimbabwe's major cash crops. Alistair Forbes, in whose home we had stayed many months in Harare worked for British-American Tobacco as a senior accountant. Most Christians in Zimbabwe considered smoking to be a sin. This made working for a tobacco company problematic for Alistair, but not nearly as bad as the impact that being a tobacco grower would have had on Dave's "testimony" in Wedza. Of course, smoking among the African population was endemic. It was one of the few "pleasures" along with beer that was available to the African populace, especially in the rural areas.
The concept of smoking as sinful arises from the Pauline teaching that the Christian's body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit of God." As such, smoking was seen as "defiling" that temple. In the US, smoking was rarely considered an issue among Christians. But, in Zimbabwe, smoking was a big deal.
Most of the prosperous farms in Wedza grew either tobacco or maize (corn). Dave's property wasn't quite suitable for growing maize as the quality of maize he could grow in his hilly and rocky fields was only adequate as feed for his cows.
The really big money was in tobacco, a hardy crop that could grow in hilly soil and was drought-resistant. Zimbabwe had endured drought conditions for three years in 1984. Only the tobacco farmers were turning a profit.
Dave and Norman had already established a small church among the 70+ workers on his dairy farm. Therefore, Norman and I turned our attention to the surrounding tobacco farms to "plant" new church groups that we hoped Norman would be able to supply itinerant ministry.
We began holding evening meetings on the surrounding tobacco farms. We knew that there was some attraction-power that Pegi and I could provide. After all, for the last few decades, the only white people who had shown up in the African worker compounds were the farm owners and Security Forces during the war. Neither was cause for rejoicing. The farm owner was the "boss" and the Security Forces were rooting out terrorists. Since the terrorists had found succor (willing and unwilling) in the worker compounds, the Security Forces suspected every African worker as a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer.
Pegi and I came to share our faith and to care for the African population. Pegi and I would lead Shona Christian choruses and perform a couple of American Christian songs that seemed to please our audiences.
One song, "From Glory to Glory" (written by American artists, The Hendricks Family), became our signature song. Over the coming months and even years as we ministered throughout Zimbabwe, young children would come up to us singing lyrics from that song. We didn't sing it particularly well, our harmonies were often comprised by very sore throats and my 12-string guitar was a bear to keep tuned. Nevertheless, we were asked to sing this song wherever we went. We even found ourselves asked to sing this song at weddings of people we hardly knew. Rhema Church which had not been interested in our ministry and arguably had the best contemporary Christian music in Zimbabwe even asked us to perform it! I still don't get it!
But, we felt we needed more firepower when it came to reaching a Shona-speaking crowd. Yes, I could speak and have Norman or someone else interpret, but I really had no idea how to reach the locals. I came from another world!
We had been given a film of a Dutch evangelistic crusade that had been dubbed into Shona. We also had been given a 16 mm movie projector when we were in South Africa. Showing a movie of any kind drew huge crowds in urban and rural settings. So, after singing for a while, we would show the hour-long film. The evangelist in the film was T.L. Osborn, an American Pentacostal preacher who claimed a miracle ministry in his mass crusades. The audience in the film was well over 50,000 and the focus after the preaching was on the dozens of people who came forward claiming to have been dramatically healed during the preaching.
Now, I think I probably watched that film fifty times--not once was I convinced that this "show" from a Holland in the 1960s was believable. Yet, somehow I had bought into the belief that miracles could happen and thought that people in our audiences would find faith in God by watching. How silly this was! People watched simply because it was the "only show in town." But, what actually had lasting effect was Pegi and me singing a few songs from our hearts.
So What About Miracles?
Some time in 1983, we had begun to consider the possibility that the miracles associated with Jesus' ministry might have been something that modern Christians could expect. Looking back on this now, it is hard for me to remember just exactly it was that persuaded me to see validity in the Jesus' ministry, more less to become a follower of Jesus. I refer you to my earlier blogs where I relate all of this.
In 2011, a good dozen years since I had considered myself a Christian of any sort and now defining my Jewish spirituality in a way that I couldn't conceive in the '80s, it is even harder to explain why I expected miracles associated with our gospel ministry. I think it just boils down to being convinced that if Jesus was to be taken at face value for what he said as recorded in the gospel accounts, then we should see potential of the miraculous in any Christian ministry.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father." John 14:12
We had begun to seek out fellowship with others who also expected the miraculous. This is what led us into charismatic circles to begin with. We never really saw any real evidence of healing. However, we appreciated the commitment to an active faith that many charismatics seemed to express. Yet, it wasn't the promise of the miraculous that kept us in charismatic circles. It was the music! Charismatic churches were using popular and light rock music to change the nature of their worship services. Music was something that Pegi and I both related to strongly. I had grown up in a household where my mother played jazz piano by ear and I had begun playing guitar just before the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Dave Clark Five led the musical "British Invasion." Pegi had grown up loving music and spending years finding peace and solace playing piano.
Our ministry was really based around music as I rarely had the chance to teach anything that was beyond a superficial gospel message. So, even though there were several who claimed to be healed by our ministry, and bunches more who claimed to be healed after watching the Shona-dubbed TL Osborn film, those kinds of miracles didn't keep our attention.
Unfortunately, many of our supporters saw miracles as the attestation of the legitimacy of our ministry and so we seemed to always lead our newsletters with something that hinted at the miraculous. (I always wondered what my Jewish agnostic mother thought of those newsletters! We never discussed that subject, but I am sure she was relieved when our newsletters began to focus on our baby, Abigail. She was the only "miracle" that mattered to us from 1986 on.)
It was only as I reflected on these events much later that I realized that we didn't need that film at all. Our compassion and love for people was what had a lasting impact. And, although I am embarrassed to think about the crazy things that we presented as truth, such as that film or "miracle ministry" in general, I smile when I think about the heart-filled and lasting response to our simple and amateurish singing.
Faith is a matter of the heart. Communication of faith in God occurs neither by reasoning (theological argument) nor by empirical demonstration (miracles). It is communicated heart-to-heart from person-to-person. If I learned anything on the tobacco road, I learned that.
Next: Under the Big Top
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Detour to Tobacco Road
So, I have missed a few days blogging--about 540 days!
Well, there has been a lot going on in my life--isn't that always the excuse?
I told myself that I could take a couple days off to get my rock group, Rage Against Age, out of the basement where we had been messing around on weekends, out in public. You can click on the link above or visit www.RageAgainstAgeBand.com for the details.
It took me a couple of months to help us transition from a weekend hobby to a serious gigging band. By the time we had a couple of new members, mastered a 4-hour set list and played our first three gigs, I was further distracted by the chance to teach World Religions as an adjunct professor at a Harper College in a Chicago suburb.
I hadn't taught an introductory world religion course in a community college since 1999, so I needed a little more time to get my notes together. For the last two terms, I have been teaching four sections (about 110 students) and have found it hard to get back to blogging.
My daughter, Abigail, has since gone back to school and will finish her BA in Business Operations Management at Northern Illinois University-Dekalb in two months (May 2011). Her son, Aiden, is now 3 1/2 and frequently comes into the Loop in downtown Chicago to spend the weekend with his grandparents "Peff" and "Jegi." We moved downtown from Naperville last July after Pegi started a new job at a downtown hospital.
Being back in the classroom for the last year has been a wonderful experience. Of course, I miss the income that working at AT&T provided, and part-time employment as an adjunct is a budget-buster in this damaged economy. Nevertheless, I love working with community college students. Most of them are young enough that they are still looking forward to a meaningful future. However, since they are in a two-year institution, they don't seem to suffer from "know-it-all-itus" as do many in four-year universities.
Since my course is an elective, I get students, who for the most part, are still seeking answers and have not hardened their hearts with regard to issues of universal truth, ultimate reality, the divine or religion in general. Most of them know that they don't know. That affords me the opportunity to help them begin a lifelong quest. I couldn't be happier in this role--well, maybe making a bit more money would help!
Full-time positions in education are few and far between, especially when it comes to religious studies. I can't teach at a confessional institution because they require adherence to dogma. If there is one thing I have learned in my 61 years, it is that I cannot survive in an environment that limits the pursuit of understanding and circumscribes personal growth to a set of written principles.
Of course, secular philosophy departments are suspicious of anyone who accepts the possibility of knowledge outside the rational sciences. I get the impression that secular schools would prefer atheists teach on matters of faith. Of course, that makes about as much sense as having lawyers teach medicine. Lawyers may be able to describe the medical arts, but I would not want a lawyer diagnosing my condition or doing open-heart surgery. For matters of the heart, I would prefer someone who has some experience! The same applies for religious matters of the heart--what we call "faith." Philosophers may describe faith, but are inept teaching it if they doubt its legitimacy. How can you teach something having never experienced it?
To quote one of my favorite itinerant middle-eastern rabbis, ". . . We speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen . . . " (John 3:11 ASV). In this passage, Jesus refers to himself as a teacher of matters of faith. He says, that a teacher must draw on personal knowledge and direct personal experience.
Now, this doesn't mean that a college professor absolutely has to have direct experience and personal experience with each faith tradition in order to lecture. However, it does lend support to my argument that it is extremely difficult to teach concerning faith in any religious tradition if you doubt the legitimacy of the experience of its adherents.
Although I do not expect to find "the truth" personally, it is that quest for universal truth and my personal commitment to live according to my own understanding that has allowed me to experience "faith." And, having experienced faith on many occasions, I can empathize with "others" of different faiths. I can put myself in their shoes and understand at a deep level what it means to be a person of faith and how commitment to that faith works out in life. That is the foundation from which I teach Primal Religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and other religious experiences. If I didn't have direct experience of faith, what would I be able to teach beyond the basic facts of each tradition? People don't live by religious facts--they live by faith.
And so, we return to the May, 1984 when I was living out my faith as a Jew who for a couple of decades was exploring "faith" from a Christian perspective on "The Tobacco Road" in Wedza, Zimbabwe.
Next: The Long-delayed Tobacco Road
Well, there has been a lot going on in my life--isn't that always the excuse?
I told myself that I could take a couple days off to get my rock group, Rage Against Age, out of the basement where we had been messing around on weekends, out in public. You can click on the link above or visit www.RageAgainstAgeBand.com for the details.
It took me a couple of months to help us transition from a weekend hobby to a serious gigging band. By the time we had a couple of new members, mastered a 4-hour set list and played our first three gigs, I was further distracted by the chance to teach World Religions as an adjunct professor at a Harper College in a Chicago suburb.I hadn't taught an introductory world religion course in a community college since 1999, so I needed a little more time to get my notes together. For the last two terms, I have been teaching four sections (about 110 students) and have found it hard to get back to blogging.
My daughter, Abigail, has since gone back to school and will finish her BA in Business Operations Management at Northern Illinois University-Dekalb in two months (May 2011). Her son, Aiden, is now 3 1/2 and frequently comes into the Loop in downtown Chicago to spend the weekend with his grandparents "Peff" and "Jegi." We moved downtown from Naperville last July after Pegi started a new job at a downtown hospital.
Aiden takes his turn on the drums at a practice.
Being back in the classroom for the last year has been a wonderful experience. Of course, I miss the income that working at AT&T provided, and part-time employment as an adjunct is a budget-buster in this damaged economy. Nevertheless, I love working with community college students. Most of them are young enough that they are still looking forward to a meaningful future. However, since they are in a two-year institution, they don't seem to suffer from "know-it-all-itus" as do many in four-year universities.Since my course is an elective, I get students, who for the most part, are still seeking answers and have not hardened their hearts with regard to issues of universal truth, ultimate reality, the divine or religion in general. Most of them know that they don't know. That affords me the opportunity to help them begin a lifelong quest. I couldn't be happier in this role--well, maybe making a bit more money would help!
Full-time positions in education are few and far between, especially when it comes to religious studies. I can't teach at a confessional institution because they require adherence to dogma. If there is one thing I have learned in my 61 years, it is that I cannot survive in an environment that limits the pursuit of understanding and circumscribes personal growth to a set of written principles.
Of course, secular philosophy departments are suspicious of anyone who accepts the possibility of knowledge outside the rational sciences. I get the impression that secular schools would prefer atheists teach on matters of faith. Of course, that makes about as much sense as having lawyers teach medicine. Lawyers may be able to describe the medical arts, but I would not want a lawyer diagnosing my condition or doing open-heart surgery. For matters of the heart, I would prefer someone who has some experience! The same applies for religious matters of the heart--what we call "faith." Philosophers may describe faith, but are inept teaching it if they doubt its legitimacy. How can you teach something having never experienced it?
To quote one of my favorite itinerant middle-eastern rabbis, ". . . We speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen . . . " (John 3:11 ASV). In this passage, Jesus refers to himself as a teacher of matters of faith. He says, that a teacher must draw on personal knowledge and direct personal experience.
Now, this doesn't mean that a college professor absolutely has to have direct experience and personal experience with each faith tradition in order to lecture. However, it does lend support to my argument that it is extremely difficult to teach concerning faith in any religious tradition if you doubt the legitimacy of the experience of its adherents.
Although I do not expect to find "the truth" personally, it is that quest for universal truth and my personal commitment to live according to my own understanding that has allowed me to experience "faith." And, having experienced faith on many occasions, I can empathize with "others" of different faiths. I can put myself in their shoes and understand at a deep level what it means to be a person of faith and how commitment to that faith works out in life. That is the foundation from which I teach Primal Religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and other religious experiences. If I didn't have direct experience of faith, what would I be able to teach beyond the basic facts of each tradition? People don't live by religious facts--they live by faith.
And so, we return to the May, 1984 when I was living out my faith as a Jew who for a couple of decades was exploring "faith" from a Christian perspective on "The Tobacco Road" in Wedza, Zimbabwe.
Next: The Long-delayed Tobacco Road
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
