Thoughts Over Hiroshima

Noverim te, noverim me – “May I know you, may I know myself” – said Thomas Merton, quoting Augustine. This is the proper summation of our prayers, but so often they are quite otherwise—I choose ignorance over knowing because deep down I know what it is about me that I do not want brought up to the surface where I will have to face God with it. I . . WE have a stupendous capacity to lie and then to believe our own lie. We tell ourselves that our lives are meaningful, and that we have attained fellowship with God rather than facing the reality that we are mere nothings, bloated full of pride, blown up like a blowfish – and it is all a facade. The only self we know is a false self, and therefore we do not really know God. Even the idea of “imitation of Christ,” Merton says, becomes for us mere “impersonation” [Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Image Books, 1971), 67-69].

I read these thoughts of Merton’s while flying from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on July 3, 2006. In particular, it was during the part of the flight in which we were over Japan, flying from north to south. As I read, I kept one eye on the navigational map on the screen in front of me, and I noticed that we were approaching Hiroshima. Indeed, we flew directly over it. I wondered if one might still experience the affect of the radiation set off there sixty years ago while flying overhead. What is the half-life of a nuclear holocaust? I felt the eeriness of confluence – of two unrelated but corresponding things that come together coincidentally: there I was, reading about our deep capacity for self-deception and selfjustification, while coincidentally passing 36,000 feet above the site of an event that, like THE Holocaust, ought to cause us to shudder and to resolve: “Never Again.”

I didn’t weep. I actually moaned – moaned out an apology to God on behalf of the human race, myself included. Thinking in cliches: “Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man?” God does, not The Shadow. And we do, if we’re willing to look inside ourselves.

How is it that we can hate other human beings to the extent that we are willing to incinerate them? I know the answer, because I know how I have hated – how I have contributed to the total conglomerate of hate and violence in the world. I’ve never physically killed, but: a butterfly flaps its wings in Australia. . . . What “domino affect” has my hate had on others? Have I despised another who, after being despised by others again, has escalated the level of hate to the point of killing? How many degrees of separation from my hate are necessary before I am no longer implicated?

Of course, I can justify my actions: those I have treated rudely have (well, for the most part) deserved it. They had to be taught a lesson. Did I teach it? Was it the right lesson? Or did I teach them that the right way to respond to others’ rudeness, mistakes, unthoughtfulness or even hate, is to hate or be rude in return? If I have returned an eye for an eye, what did I teach?

We dropped two atomic bombs on Japan because, so it has been argued, it had to be done to save American lives – as if saving American lives is worth killing Japanese lives. Of course, that argument has been questioned: were fewer people killed by incineration than would have been killed in battle on South Pacific islands? Maybe, maybe not. But a more fundamental question is, which lives are worth more, American or Japanese? Can I really argue that killing Japanese people is morally good if it saves Americans? Did it also save Japanese lives? Again, the utilitarian argument could go either way. What is clear is that in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (especially the latter) the mass killing of noncombatants was thought worth the price. Nagasaki has been described as a “sleepy little fishing village.” Unsuspecting innocents, beginning their day, going about their daily, mundane tasks, preparing for work, school, the opening of the shop, perhaps taking their breakfast after feeding the livestock, and then . . . the unspeakable. For some, just a flash and an instant death; for others, a deafening concussion, the building falling in, pinned beneath rubble, perforated by flying debris, wonder of what had happened, wonder of where the children are, or the wife or husband or mother or father, and then perhaps a slower death – but yet more merciful than the deaths that followed from radiation poisoning – the agonizing pain of burns from the radiation, the passing of strength to weakness to death. I dare not attempt to imagine.

Of course, we want clean consciences, and so we have conjured up our best defenses to justify such torture of fellow human beings – and each defense reduces them to something less than human – something it is ok to kill, as we kill a bug that has wandered into our path. We do this to protect our human (and humane) status. But this reduction of humans to less-than-human has another affect: it reduces ME, the defender, as well. When we degrade, we are also degraded. It is not just the degrading of enemies, it is the degradation of the human, and so I am included.

The attempt to rescue my humanity from the specter of insane cruelty is void because I am still degraded. I am still brought down, still reduced to less-than-human, and as a result I will find it easier and easier to disregard the value of human life: as less-than-human, my life is not so valuable after all, and neither are the lives of those around me. And as less-than-human, I cannot be held responsible to the “lofty” standards of humanity. Those standards seem idealistic, unreal, outdated, antique and irrelevant. They just no longer matter. We are no longer human.

What happened on those two days in August of 1945 was not just the killing of a million or so Japanese, it was the killing of humanity. Certainly there had been previous calamitous cruelties – THE Holocaust, for instance – but was this event the final nail in the coffin? We used to think that humanity was rising out of the swamp, climbing higher and higher, becoming more and more dignified. At least that is what the nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophers and theologians believed. There were no heights we would not reach, no mysteries of the universe we would not fathom, no worlds we would not conquer. We were becoming, in Nietzsche’s terms, ubermenschen, “supermen” who could and should set our own ethical codes. World War II shattered that vision of humanity. It revealed that the “new man” we thought we had become, the result of centuries of progress, was still mired in the swamp of sin and evil. Our technological conquests had only made us capable of greater evil on greater numbers of our fellow human beings, all at once.

This weapon of mass destruction was decisive, perhaps, in human history, because we now knew that we possessed the power of absolute self-destruction. While abject cruelty had obviously existed before 1944, never before had such self-hate been set loose in the world. More than just tribal warfare, more than nation against nation, this was the power to do away with the entire human race. “Suicide” is not a big enough word; neither is “genocide." Would “humanicide” do? We didn’t completely destroy ourselves; we tried to cut a cancer out of humanity, but left ourselves crippled as a result of the radical self-surgery. More than simply blowing up a few hundred thousand human beings, we blew out our collective brains – the very soul of humanity as a whole. Humanity, true humanity, was destroyed. It was burned beyond recognition, transmuted at the sub-atomic level. Evolution was replaced by devolution. Was it the apex of sin? Dare we hope?

Can we ever recover? If so, how? How can we recover a lost humanity? The answer is one we all know, but do not want to hear or say. The answer is: we cannot. Humanity is more than chemicals in a test tube. We may, in time, be able to align the chromosomes and DNA correctly to produce a human body that lives. But doing so will not restore humanity. The body thus produced will still find itself part of a less-than-human humanity, a sub-humanity that continues to wallow in self-hate and take morbid pleasure in self-degradation and self-destruction. Recovery is beyond our power. How can we stop hating ourselves? Our self-hate leads to more and more self-degradation, leading to more and more self-hate, thus more self-degradation. . . . The vicious cycle to end all vicious cycles. Perhaps.

Though recovery is beyond our power, it is not impossible. Do we believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Do we believe that he conquered the powers of death and sin? Do we believe that God the Father “made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21)? What does this mean? Is it “just a metaphor”? Or did something on the level of creation (God “made” so we could “become”) occur on the cross? Perhaps even something “beneath” the subatomic llevel, at the place where humanity meets human bodies. And even deeper – at the place where God’s identity resides: Jesus, the Son of God and God himself, was made (though not forced) to “be” sin. He did not, it appears, simply “deal with” sin; nor did he merely “pay the price” or take sin “on” himself, though these things are also true. In the person of God the Son, God took sin into himself. This was no external transaction or business operation. This was God himself becoming me, becoming every human being who ever lived, every human being who deserved to be on that cross. The “deal” struck was not between God and some other being; it was internal to God. Sin was “dealt with” by God not as something impersonal to him, but as something which he felt, by which God himself was scarred and pained.

Did God become sinful? The text does not go so far. The only result it states of God’s action is that we can become God’s righteousness. There is no explanation of how that occurs. However, scripture does give us some hints, in other places, of how the “deal” went within God. If we follow for a moment the metaphor of light in scripture: Jesus, the light of the world, is the Son of God who is himself light (John 8:12; 1 John 1:5). Psalm 139:11-12 says: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.” What happens, then, if the darkness of sin meets up with the light of the world – with the God who is light? To paraphrase John 1:5, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. Light dispels darkness. God’s presence dispels darkness and sin.

This is the only hope sub-humanity has. Only God can restore our lost humanity that we so willingly threw away. To know this about ourselves is to begin to know God.

Dr. M. L. King on Viet Nam -- and Iraq?

No, Dr. King was not speaking about Iraq, but about our nation's propensity toward solving problems violently. However, his predictions about future generations are uncanny -- here we are, forty years later, faced with an almost identical situation. Why? Because we have not solved the moral problems to which he refers. You can listen to the speech and read the entire text here (American Rhetoric.com). Thanks to Sojourners' "Daily Verse and Voice" for the information.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

[April 4, 1967 at a meeting of "Clergy and Laity Concerned"]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

. . . . it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

. . . . As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their qestions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be [i.e., will live up to its commitment that all people are created equal] are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality . . . we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

. . . . the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken. . . . we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin . . . the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Peacemaking as Typhoon relief

My old college friend, Salvador Cariaga, sends this report after one month of helping people whose lives were devastated by two typhoons in 10 days in the Mayon district of the Philippines.

A typhoon or hurricane is the strongest storm on earth. The last two typhoons that hit the Bicol Region in less than a week showed how powerful and damaging this force can be. Over 700 villages, five provinces, half a dozen cities, and a million people were affected by this recent double destruction. This was multiplied by the lahar and mudslides coming down from the Mayon volcano just fresh from its recent eruptions.

Though the loss of lives was 'minimal' at over 1,000, the damage is extensive and widespread. What was once lush agricultural fields of cocunut trees have turned into a war zone-like scenario. From the airplane, the abundant coconut trees looked like tooth picks sticking up from the ground, if not bent or fallen in all directions. Miles and miles of houses were damaged or completely destroyed, many roads and bridges were almost impassable or closed, electric posts dangerously leaning everywhere.

Our one month of disaster relief involving over 100 volunteers from around the country did a lot for two small communities, but we barely scratched the surface. However, after one month of sleeping in tents, I am glad to be home and take a short break. We did just about everything, including medical mission, provide roofing for over 500 families, our volunteers cleaned up and helped fix a dozen houses, rebuilt a community basketball court, fed thousands, gave away hundreds of bags and school supplies to kids, conducted two VBS, gave away 131,000 shampoo packs donated by Proctor and Gamble, etc.

My partners and I have personally met mayors, a governor, congresman, and local community leaders and tried to work with them and through them. In the process, a new congregation is forming and another house church is expected to start. Last Sunday, 62 visitors attended our worship service. Yesterday in his brief visit around Mayon Volcano, Dr. John Bailey saw some of the places and people we have served.

We will be back there again with a new team and a new round of relief effort. We plan to do medical mission with half a dozen doctors and help provide roofing for 1000 more homes. We need to raise the following:

1. Medicine to treat 1000 or more people

2. 100 rolls of tarp to provide temporary roofing for 1000 more homes

3. 1000 Bibles. Most people's Bibles were water-damaged, if not swept away. 1000 Bibles is nothing compared to the need, but we plan to hand deliver them to the homes with personal prayer and encouragement.

4. Feed 10,000 people

5. Supply the food and needs of 60-80 volunteers for two weeks.

6. Generator

7. Chain saw

8. 20 more tents and beddings for the volunteer workers.

Note: Salvador had a ruptured apendix and was operated. He is currently recovering in the hospital.

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If you wish to help with material things like seeds, food and clothes, please send them to:

(Manila Area)
Makati Church of Christ
1598 Archimedes St
Brg Lapaz Makati, (near brgh hall)
Metro Manila,
Philippines

(Visayas Area)
Mactan Church of Christ
Tumulak Street,
Gun-ob
Lapu-Lapu City Cebu 6015
Philippines

(Mindanao Area)
Sunrise Christian College
Bon-Bon, Butuan City 8100
Philippines

For cash donations, please send it to the bank account of

Mactan Church of Christ

Metro Bank, Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City
00718550805-2
Swift number MBTCTHMM

Foreign donors can send their checks through their churches or mail it to:

BandS Ministries (Body and Soul)
P.O. Box 1926
Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net http://www.bandsministries.org/

If you have questions concerning Salvador's work, or the BandS organization of Dr. John Bailey, please feel free to email me.

Philippine typhoon relief work

I have just received the following message from Salvador Cariaga who has been in the disaster area near the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines for about the last month (since the 2 typhoons struck).

Relief Mission Update
I have witnessed the destruction caused by the tsunami in Sri Lanka and my brother, Dr. Sam have been there and to Indonesia as well. Although more people died in that aweful tragedy both of us think that the structural damage done by the two recent successive typhoons in Bicol region (around the active Mayon Volcano) is more wide spread and devastating. Sunday, I drove 100 miles towards Manila, and the damage reached all the way there. Another island province called Catanduanes is also hit as hard if not harder than where I am. I have been here in the disaster site for almost a month now, and I still can not get used to seeing the extensive damage of properties and crops.

Early this morning, I have personally visitied two homes owned by elderly widows (we are prioritizing our assistance on the elderly and widows). The first one is located just accross our new Disaster Camp in Bacacay, Albay. An electric post dangerously leans on their house while half of their roof is torn off and a couple of walls are missing. Their small "sari-sari (house store) was wiped out. Another widow lost everything in the typhoons. Not a single post was left standing. She rebuilt her house with twig-like materials and plastic trash for her roof.

Over 50 volunteers are now helping poor elderly folks like them. Some have already left and more are still coming. We are also getting local cash and kind donations from all over the country, including 31,000 packs of shampoo from proctor and gamble. Our volunteers are having fun distributing them around as freely as they do our WBS materials. Our main donors are members of the Churches of Christ, Bands (Body and Soul Ministry), and Caris Foundation.

Our first big batch of workers are getting tired and homesick. Most will go home this weekend. We have fresh new group on site now preparing to take over until after the new year. After that, I will take a break for a few weeks and be with my family. Unless new funds and workers take over, I might close the camp for good and just help the new church planting mission take over. We discovered three members of the Lord's church in Bacacay (who did not know each other). They committed to start a house church if we provide them a preacher until they can stand on their own.

Please continue to pray for this new ministry. I do not know what will happen and where this will lead to. I have gone as far as I could with this. Perhaps I too am a bit tired and homesick. I have been living in tents for weeks now. Maybe a break from here next month will help.

In His Service,

Salvador Cariaga

If you wish to help with material things like seeds, food and clothes, please send them to:


(Manila Area)
Makati Church of Christ
1598 Archimedes St
Brg Lapaz Makati, (near brgh hall)
Metro Manila,
Philippines

(Visayas Area)
Mactan Church of Christ
Tumulak Street, Gun-ob
Lapu-Lapu City Cebu 6015
Philippines
(Mindanao Area)

SunriseChristian College
Bon-Bon, Butuan City 8100
Philippines

For cash donations, please send it to the bank account of Mactan Church of Christ Metro Bank, Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City 00718550805-2

Foreign donors can send their check to through their churches or mail it to:

BandS Ministries (Body and Soul)
P.O. Box 1926
Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net, www.bandsministries.org <http://www.bandsministries.org>

_____

If you need further information, please email me at Cariaga@yahoo.com or call or text me at +63 917 624 3719

View recent pictures of the calamity by clicking below....
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/philippinemission/album?.dir=d820scd

Last weeks' report....
Forty one church volunteers have already arrived in our Disaster Base Camp overlooking the mighty Mayon Volcano spewing out ash and smoke. Ten more are expected tomorrow and ten more the next day and more after that. All will be staying in the school grounds (classroom or tent) without electricity or running water.

Today, our group will have conducted five different church services before the day is over. We hope that this will lead to at least one new congregation. Tomorrow, we will resume our planned schedule:

1. Repair the public school building. Classrooms, comfort rooms, cut broken tree branches, move felled trees, cut grass, fix rock walls,etc.
2. Cook for and serve 300 kids and youth.
3. Have Bible classes for most of the 300.
4. Visit homes most severely damaged or those owned by widows.
5. Bible studies and devotional.
6. Organizational meeting.

We will also distribute roofing materials, nails, cement and seeds. We have a partial delivery of 65 boxes of shampoo (31,00 sachet pieces or one truckload) to distribute also. We are negotiating with other companies to use us as a conduit for their donated products. Most of our volunteers are giving up their Christmas and New Year holidays with their families to serve in
the name of Christ.

In Him,

Salvador

On Being Peacemakers

See this statement from Sojourners called "Confessing Christ in a Violent World." Good stuff. Let us pray for the grace to live it.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.election&item=confession_signers

True Peace

A sermon I recently heard (ok, it ended only half an hour ago) affirmed for the congregation that even though the angels announced "Peace on Earth" at the birth of Jesus, that peace isn't really to be found on earth. It's only in heaven after you die, and "in your heart."

I like that -- it makes Christian faith easier. No more working for peace on earth, no more having to put up with violent people who want to hurt me or injure me in some way. I can just kill them, so long as I have peace in my heart. Ain't life grand? Pass the ammunition.

Further, God isn't really trying to do anything in his creation: creation doesn't matter because, well, it's MATTER, and we all know that heaven means shedding this flesh and bone and becoming pure spirit so we can go to a "place" (why "spirits" need a "place" I'll never understand) called "the kingdom of God" that is also "purely spiritual" because "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50), and "this world is not my home," yada, yada, yada.

Uh, no. That is the gnostic heresy all over again -- the importation of Greek dualism into Christian doctrine. Here's what I mean.

You can find one source of these ideas in Plato's separation of "appearance" from "reality" in "The Myth of the Cave." Briefly, all we see around us is "mere appearance," which is NOT the way things "really are." The "real" is in the "realm of the ideals," and the stuff we see around us is "mere shadow" of those "realities" that exist in that "other place," the "realm of the ideals."

Now, this concept is probably valuable as a hermeneutical caveat against taking things around us at "face value." However, when it is taken in the ontological sense, i.e., as a description of "the way things really are," it becomes problematic. Taken into Christianity, it becomes heresy.

Gnosticism rose up out of Christianity in the second century. It took Christian language about "flesh" and "spirit" and interpreted it in terms of Greek dualism. For the Gnostics, "flesh" was always evil, and "spirit" was always good. The two could not be mixed, and any contact with "flesh" would render "spirit" evil. This concept had a number of implications for these "Christian Gnostics."

First, it meant that the true God could not have created this world -- that would be to blame this evil place on him and taint his character. So, Gnostics imagined an extended hierarchy of deities, one emanating from the other, each one "less divine" than the other, until they found a deity far enough removed from the original (and "true") Deity that they could blame creation on him (the lesser deity) without casting blame on the TRUE Deity.

Second, it meant that God's Son, the Redeemer, could not really have "become flesh." That would be to mix spirit with matter and to taint the character of the "True Deity."

Third, since this cosmic dualism extended into the personal realm, the "true you" (or "true me") is not this "shell" we call "the body," but is the "divine spark" within each one of us. So, "salvation" came to be seen as a liberation from this "evil body." The "divine spark" was understood to be the "soul," which is, more or less, a ghost that haunts one's body [credit to novelist Walker Percy for that phrase]. One is liberated from the body by knowing this "truth" about oneself. Salvation, then, is not so much from sin, but from ignorance. Thus, the name of this heresy, "gnosticism," is derived from the Greek work gnosko, which means "to know."

Fourth (and this is the best part!), it has ethical implications. Gnostics went one of two ways here. One way was to denigrate the body, to chastise it and essentially starve it to death because it is flesh and therefore evil. It is the other path that I like best: since the body didn't mean anything, and it isn't even the "real me," my body can do whatever it wants! It's not the "real me" anyway! Is this a great religion or what?

What I heard in the sermon today was that bodies and creation don't matter. If that is true, then my body can do whatever it wants! I'm lovin' it!

But, doesn't the Bible clearly indicate a division between "flesh and blood"? Let's see. Paul certainly uses that language, but we have to remember that Paul was highly trained in the Jewish faith and Rabbinic theology. Therefore we have to understand it as having grown out of that background. Though Paul made use of common ideas and phrases out of the Greek culture, the theology (and therefore the content or meaning of the terms) is out of the Old Testament. Here are a few relevant concepts.

First, God loves this creation, including the "matter" out of which he made it. The creation story in Genesis has God affirming the goodness of all that he made over and over, and even after "The Fall," there is no statement that indicates that it stopped being good or that God stopped loving it. The closest thing to such a statement is in Genesis 6, just before the flood, where the text says that "Yahweh repented that he had made human beings" (my trans.). Certainly human beings had brought sin into the world and had become utterly sinful (see Gen. 6:5), but the "plan of salvation" that God put into motion in Genesis 12 with the calling of Abraham was NOT a negation of what he had made, but a redemption. God is NOT sorry he created (in general), but sorry he had created human beings. When he destroyed them by the flood, he didn't destroy them all and start over with a different kind of being. He left a few humans alive and began the same project all over again! The point of the story is that sin will be a reality so long as there are humans: if you have human beings, you will also have sin and evil. You don't get rid of evil by killing off all the people you think are evil because the evil is right within each one of us. Yet it does not negate the goodness in which we were created, nor does it negate the imago Dei, the "image of God" in which we were created.

Now, take a look at Romans 8:18-25, a passage I like to call "God's Plan of Salvation." What are God's intentions for his creation stated here? Apparently, God intends to redeem it ALL -- ALL of it is "groaning as in labor," waiting for the "birth" of the children of God -- waiting for the FINAL CONSUMMATION of our redemption, in which the entire creation is to share! Salvation here includes (!) bodies ("the redemption of our bodies," v. 23; cf. also 1 Cor. 15 on the resurrection of bodies, and 1 Cor. 6 on our bodies being "members of Christ"). There is no thought here of a "ghost that haunts the body," nor of a "spirituality" that excludes and/or denigrates the body! "Spirituality" actually involves one's body -- or it's not truly "spiritual"!

In fact, the word "soul" as it is used in both Old and New Testaments (Hebrew nephesh; Greek psyche) is a reference not to some "ghost that haunts the body," but to the whole person. Ask yourself this question: Can souls swim? Sounds nonsensical if the "soul" is equivalent to a "personal ghost" or some such notion. But note this: in the story of the flood, the Hebrew text reads that there were "eight souls" (nepheshim) saved in the ark. The New Testament reference says the same thing, but uses the Greek psyche. So: saved from what? Well, didn't the ark save them from drowning? Why? Can't souls swim? Well, if they're "personal ghosts" then they don't have to swim, it would seem (not needing oxygen to survive, etc.). But, since here souls were saved from drowning, it may be that the word "soul" has a different reference, and indeed it does. If you consult the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, a very scholarly source edited by Colin Brown, you will find that "soul" essentially refers to "the whole person." Therefore, most contemporary translations of the Bible will tell you that "eight persons were saved" by the ark.

In other words, there is no "personal dualism" to be found in the New Testament, and no "cosmic dualism." "Salvation" is, therefore, not just a "pie in the sky by and by" kind of thing, and the "peace of God which surpasses all understanding" isn't something we get when we enter the pearly gates, but it is something we both enjoy in the here and now and must live out in the present time!

The "peace" offered by Jesus is also a "here and now" peace -- though it is true that we live in a world of strife and violence. What, then, does it mean for the angels to announce "Peace on earth" to the shepherds -- and to us?

It means, of course, that Jesus is indeed the "prince of peace," and that we, as those who believe it, are called to live that peace in our world. It is not just a "feeling of calmness" in the midst of chaos, though it may be that. But we are also called to BE something: "peacemakers." We are to live as if God is really in charge -- to live out of control because God is in control! We are to live the peace of God's kingdom as lights in a dark world. That is what Jesus did, and we are his disciples. We live our salvation so that others will see it. Some will love it and respond positively. Others will see us as weak and take advantage of us. But that doesn't change our call from God. When the angels announced "Peace on earth," they were speaking a word from God, and God wasn't kidding. Peace.

On Being Nice

More on Hauerwas. I recently commented that I love his abrasiveness. However, I’ve never seen him be unkind. Quite the opposite: he is a very gracious, grace-filled man. I know this both from personal experience and from hearing the “Hauerwas Lore.”

At any rate, the “abrasiveness” comes from the gospel. Yes, that’s right – the good news of Jesus Christ. There. You heard me say it, right here on my blog in front of God and everybody (not that I assume God is a reader of my blog!).

I wonder sometimes where Christians ever got the notion that we’re all about “being nice.” Does it come from the gospels? Let’s see, hmmm. Maybe it’s the preaching of Jesus recorded there – the preaching to and about (at the same time!) the “scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites”? Uh, no, that’s probably not it. Well, what about, hmm, the stories of Jesus healing people? Yeah, that could do it – except that every time he healed someone, it turned out to be the WRONG “someone,” and it made him enemies.

Well, was Jesus ever kind to anyone? Yes – to all the “wrong people.” To the lepers, the children, the women with “a past,” the tax collectors, the Samaritan women, etc., etc. He was nice to the people who “didn’t count” in his society – the people who couldn’t help him when he got arrested by calling up their powerful friends and working a deal. He was kind to those who couldn’t return the favor even if they wanted to.

It was to the powerful that he spoke his harshest words and called his most provocative names – “bunch of snakes,” and “whitewashed tombs full of dead bodies,” etc. These are the kinds of words he spoke to those who could have helped him when he got in trouble. But those were the very people who worked against him, who wanted him arrested. These were the people of power and influence to whom he spoke harshly. He wasn’t nice to them. (One exception: the Pharisee Nicodemus in John 3 – who came to Jesus seeking the truth.)

These days we judge churches by how “nice” they are – by how many people greet us (or not) as we enter and find a place to sit and as we leave. Church growth experts tell us that only “nice” churches grow. And it’s a “given” that Christians are supposed to be “nice” because that’s how we will be able to share the gospel of this . . . not-so-nice-Jesus?

There are limits to our “niceness,” of course, and typically those limits are also the borders of our nation, or more precisely, of our nationalism. We’ll be nice to just about anyone unless they happen to be an enemy of our nation. Then, we typically reason, it’s ok to kill them and their children, or at least make life miserable for them through “economic sanctions” (the modern form of the siege). Not so nice. Not so much like Jesus.

But we do share the gospel, and we’re “nice,” and sometimes people get mad at us anyway. I think it would be great if that anger toward Christians was for the same reasons religious leaders in the first century got mad at Jesus, but it’s not. In America, the non-religious folks sometimes get mad at Christians because, well, we’re arrogant and we want power. They see the hypocrisy of many Christians who proclaim a gospel of “niceness” and then believe it is just fine to kill enemies and abandon the poor to their own resources. But when they hate us for these reasons, frequently the Christian response has been to cry “Persecution! Persecution!” And so the battle rages.

Of course, this is a somewhat more difficult problem than my description here, and not all Christians fall under this description. But enough of “us” DO fall under the description that I believe it’s safe to offer it as a generalization.

In other words, “we” are sometimes abrasive for the wrong reasons – for really bad reasons, reasons that are decidedly NOT the gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

So, though Hauerwas has sometimes been criticized for his abrasiveness, could one say that in this characteristic he is very much like Jesus? I’ve heard him say (and he may have written this somewhere, too) that if he goes somewhere to preach and doesn’t make someone mad, he feels like he’s been unfaithful to the gospel. And THAT is why I would like to be as abrasive as Stanley Hauerwas.

Precisely what is it about the gospel that is “abrasive”? And to whom? I’ll consider those questions in a subsequent post.

A Better Hope

I am in the process of reading A Better Hope, a collection of essays by Stanley Hauerwas (Brazos Press, 2000). Stanley has long been a favorite of mine, in part because I dearly love his abrasiveness (and wish very much to be just as abrasive!), and in part because he has such clear focus on our Lord, and he strives to let that focus determine everything he thinks, says, does and/or writes.

This book, though, is his attempt to state the positive rather than the negative. He says this book will not, however, present "a kinder, gentler Hauerwas." Thank God! We don't need a "Hauerwoos." ;-) Listen:

I do not deny that I love a good fight, but I also know that it is a mistake, at least if you are a Christian, to have your life or theology determined by who you think are your enemies. Christians know we will have enemies because we are told we must love our enemies. That we are commanded to love our enemies is not a strategy to guarantee that all enmity can be overcome, but a reminder that for Christians our lives must be determined by our loves, not our hates. That is why Christians cannot afford to let ourselves be defined by what we are against. Whatever or whomever we are against, we are so only because God has given us so much to be for.

Certainly this statement (and others similar to it) will make Hauerwas new enemies, or at the least renew the enmity of old ones. Why?

Because people don't want policies that won't "work," that won't guarantee that "all enmity [will] be overcome." We human beings are not very comfortable with physical uncertainties. Refusing to conquer our enemies means letting them be who they are -- our enemies, some of whom want to kill us. It seems then that to love them is to give them tacit permission to kill us. So, loving them means we may have to give up our comfort and way of life, or the comfort and way of life we would like our children and grandchildren to have. We may get killed. That doesn't see fair -- here we are, working for justice, and we get killed for it? Some would simply refuse to pay that price. And since we know Jesus was rational, we "know" he could not have really meant that. Or so this line of reasoning goes.

But, if we realize, as Hauerwas has said, that we don't love our enemies because we believe it will "work" in some strategic way, that it will suddenly convert our enemies into puppy dogs so the world will become a "Precious Moments" scene, but rather we love them because God does and because we were baptized into the Lord who died for them, that line of reasoning is shown to be irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether or not the "strategy" (and it becomes at this point something other than a "strategy") "works": what matters is who we are -- we ARE a people defined not by our enemies but by our Lord.

I'm grateful for Stanley Hauerwas for showing this to me.

Devastation in the Philippines

The area surrounding the Mayon volcano was the hardest hit area by the typhoons Durian and Utor over the last two weeks. Here are a few photos. See previous posts for more information.

God is Not an American

There is a wonderful group on Facebook, "God is Not an American." I love it because I so often see evidence that many, many of the people around me think that he/she IS American, and that s/he loves to underwrite the American "foreign policy" agenda and can't wait to sign onto the next Republican party platform. Admittedly, I do see Democrats that have a parallel attitude, but generally speaking, it seems to be more prevalent on the Republican side of the aisle. Of course, some Republicans might say it's because Republicans believe in God and Democrats don't, or some other such silliness. I won't even dignify that with a response.

Now, if you believe as I do that God is a lover of all human beings equally, then grab your barf bag and click on this link. Watch the video. Do you see what I see?

I see people who cannot tell the difference between their Christianity and their patriotism -- they think they are one and the same. I see people who assume that God is indeed an American, and that God always supports America, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ supports the work of our military when it kills our enemies.

Is there not a tension here between the words of Jesus, "Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you," and the idea that we sometimes have to kill our enemies? "Tension" is certainly too soft a term. There is no "tension," there is conflict. However, this video demonstrates how easily the gospel of Jesus can be perverted to the extent that many feel absolutely tension, let alone sense a conflict here.

Now, I don't object to the existence of a group of Christians who might lobby representatives of our government on certain issues. I don't object to government employees praying or studying the Bible. What I object to in this video (and in American "Christian" culture in general) is the assumption that the gospel aligns perfectly with our American agenda. Here's an example.

Manifest Destiny. America was "meant" to extend "from sea to shining sea," and anything or anyone that stood in its way was opposing divine intention and was therefore subject to divine wrath, which "we" were more than willing to execute (pun intended, but not intended to be funny!) on God's behalf. It was genocide, and the first peoples to reside in this place barely survived. It was an atrocity -- to the point that I have to put the quote marks around "we" when I talk about it. Whether or not my ancestors participated, as a white male I have reaped the benefits of what was done. It was done because "we" were Christian and the native peoples were "pagan savages" who were worthy of slaughter. (For a more complete exposition of how "Manifest Destiny" worked in American history, see the book by Richard Hughes, Myths America Lives By. Bibliographical information and a review by yours truly can be found by clicking here. Review originally appeared in The Christian Chronicle.)

I'm not sure what to do about this issue except to keep talking about it. Anybody got a flak jacket I can borrow?

Philippines typhoon disaster: update

My friend Salvador Cariaga sent the following text message from the disaster site on the Philippine island of Luzon, near the Mayon Volcano:

Toured around the volcano. Devastation and damage everywhere. Most houses, crops and schools destroyed. Stench of death still lingering. Images of despair all over. Lava flow, typhoon, mudslides, floodin; another typhoon would bring more mudslides and flooding. Too much for people to bear. Food shortage and widespread disease feared.

A good news account can be found here:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/222031/116585446739.htm

If you wish to donate, see information in the previous posts (below).

ck

Typhoon Utor

The second typhoon to hit the Philippines in ten days, Typhoon Utor, killed "only" five people. The damage from the first one, Typhoon Durian, is still largely unassessed. Some areas are still unaccessible because of mud slides that have blocked roads. See the story here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/12/asia/AS_WEA_Asia_Storm.php

My friend Salvador is on his way to the disaster area -- he's probably already there as of this writing (10:45 AM CT, Tuesday, December 12). Here is his last message before leaving:

Typhoon Disaster Update (12/12/06)
In a few hours, I will be leaving for the disaster site where Jun Arcilla, Elmer Palacio and several other colleages have been scouting for several days now. Elmer's sister and cousin lived in separate communities. Both their houses were destroyed by mudslide. His cousin had to evacuate his whole family to Manila. They lost everything. Jun Arcilla has also been networking with his contacts in Albay and Sorsogon. Aside from scouting how we could be of help, he has also been zealously evangelizing and teaching people the word of God. He found a Christian family in Pilar and they have been working with him and taking him around.

Wednesday, we will meet with MARCH for Christ workers in Legaspi. My brother, Dr. Sam and several others in our contingent will join forces with MARCH and conduct a medical and dental mission on December 13-15. MARCH have been doing feeding mission and helping thousands of people. Gigie Caranza and a dozen other workers have been there since last week. Based on the information I have gleaned from our brothers in the field and news network, they need the three basic necessities: food, shelter, and clothing. Over a million is supposed to be affected by the disaster, many are left homeless.

If you wish to help, please send material things like food and
clothes to:

Jun Patricio
c/o Makati Church of Christ.
1598 Archimedes St
Brg Lapaz Makati, (near brgh hall)
Metro Manila

For cash donations, please send it to the bank account of Mactan Church of Christ:

Metro Bank, Pusok,
Lapu-Lapu City
00718550805-2

Foreign donors can send their check to:

BandS Ministries
P.O. Box 1926
Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may
contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net or

www.bandsministries.org

If you need further information, please email me or text me at +63 917 6243719

In His Service,

Salvador Cariaga

http://www.philippinechurchesofchrist.org/

Typhoon Durian

Odd name for a typhoon: Durian. In the Philippine Islands, which Typhoon Durian hit just a few days ago, Durian is a fruit -- a "stinky fruit" for which, they tell me, one must develop a taste. Apparently it smells so bad that it is illegal to carry one on any public transportation. No kidding.

And now, after Durian, another typhoon has hit the Philippines. One of my old college friends, Salvador Cariaga, has been a missionary in the Philippines since his graduation from Oklahoma Christian University in 1983. The Philippines is a very poor country generally, and the people who have gone to the disaster site to minister to those in crisis do not have a lot.

Below, I will paste several messages I've received from my friend, Salvador, along with information which will tell you how to donate to the relief efforts.

First, the "official" plea for assistance.

Manila authorities say over 1200 dead. Hundreds of villages destroyed.

Two scout teams will start serving the typhoon victims today in Albay. We have joined forces with MARCH for Christ led by Chito Cusi. While some will be providing food and medical care, others will be scouting the area and working with the government and relief agencies on how we can be most effective.
We are looking for sources of cheap used clothing to buy and ship them in site as soon as possible. We are sourcing out funding for that and canned foods also to provide for the victims.

Next week, larger teams will arrive to do more medical mission and provide spiritual and emotional counseling. Jun Arcilla, preacher of Mandaue Church of Christ, and a native of Albay and Dr. Teves, a Christian surgeon were sent by BANDS to do the inital work there. BANDS (Body and Soul), led by Dr. John Bailey, is sponsoring a larger team next week.

www.bandsministries.org

To help with the disaster victims,
please send it to:

BandS Ministries

P.O. Box 1926

Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net or send them to your home church and they will contact us.

Salvador Cariaga
http://www.philippinechurchesofchrist.org/

carla calhoun wrote:
Viet Nam update:
Currently: 59 dead
Areas affected: Within two months of typhoon Xangsane hitting both the Philippines and Viet Nam, typhoon Durian has followed the same path leaving the Philippines and travelling parallel to the southern Vietnamese coast. Typhoon Durian made landfall in the southern Vietnamese province of Vung Tau and the Mekong river delta on the evening of Tuesday 5 December 2006. The eye of the typhoon crossed Phu Qui island in Binh Thuan province, destroying homes, community infrastructure and disrupting out communications and electrical systems. Initial estimates by the authorities and Viet Nam Red Cross (VNRC) officials indicate 48 people dead, 184 injured and ten missing. Over 120,000 houses are reported to have collapsed or had their roofs blown off and approximately 700 boats have been sunk.
The most affected areas are Phu Qui island in Binh Thuan province, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, and Vinh Long provinces. Heavy rains as a result of the typhoon in Danang, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces have increased river water levels to dangerous heights.

Philippine Update:
MANILA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in the aftermath of typhoon Durian has risen to 543 with over 2,000 people reported injured or missing in Albay province, central Philippines, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said on Wednesday.

Two men with BANDS will be out today assessing the damage.
Salvador Cariaga will keep us posted on news and updates.

Pray for the families in these areas. May the Christian brothers be blessed as they render aid to their neighbors. More information to follow on how to help.

Carla

Carla Calhoun saw this story on Asianews and thought you should see it.

Message: disasterresource@yahoo.com

Manila authorities say over 1200 dead. Hundreds of villages destroyed. Article:PHILIPPINES - VIETNAM Typhoon Durian:
reconstruction could take yearsThis is the estimation of the Filipino authorities. The typhoon killed 1200 people and buried 700 villages. Moving to Vietnam, it left 54 dead in its wake. If you want to see the full article click here

Asianews is not responsable for the content of this e-mail

NEXT EMAIL:

Filipino Christian workers now on site."Manila authorities say over 1200 dead. Hundreds of villages destroyed." Two teams started serving the typhoon victims yesterday in Albay. Jun Arcilla, formerly from Catanduanes, now minister of Mandaue Church of Christ in Cebu, surveyed the area and interviewed the victims. He reported witnessing a sea of refugees. The constant rain is making matters worse for the rescuers and the survivors. The Philippine newspaper PDI estimated that over a million people were displaced with hundreds of villages wiped out. Elmer Palacio, a preacher in Cebu has a sister in Bacacay, Albay. He said their home was totally destroyed. Her family was devastated and do not know where to go and what to do. A local official found her husband wandering in town aimlessly. I promised emergency fund to tied them over until we get there. MARCH for Christ also have a small team in Albay. Gigi Caranza and Naga brethren are on site preparing a feeding program for the survivors. A joint medical and dental mission will be held early next week with Dr. Samuel Cariaga and other doctors. Preachers from the churches of Christ will also assist in the counseling and spiritual guidance. We hope to provide food and clothing during this mission. Later on, we hope to participate in the rebuilding program and help provide a new home for those who lost everything. We will also ask Philippine churches of Christ to contribute for this cause. Some have already offered used clothes and money. BANDS (Body and Soul), led by Dr. John Bailey, has provided us the seed money to respond immediately. We will need $10,000 for next week's mission and more for the second and third. This will help with the medicine, food, clothes, and temporary shelter for the survivors. We also need a portion of this to transport volunteers, feed and house them. To help with this disaster effort , please send it to:

BandS Ministries

P.O. Box 1926

Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net www.bandsministries.org or send your help to your home church and they will contact us.

For local donations, please send it to

Jun Patricio
c/o Makati Church of Christ.
1598 Archimedes St
Brg Lapaz Makati (near brgh hall)

We are negotiating with Manila brethren who are duly registered with the government to be official conduit of funds locally and abroad. The information should be available sometime today. For more information, please contact me or Jun Patricio at bonifaciopatricio@yahoo.com MARCH for Christ can be reached through Chito Cusi at lpcusi@yahoo.com

In His Service,


Salvador Cariaga http://www.philippinechurchesofchrist.org/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------This document has been forwarded from the ReliefWeb site. Sender: carla calhoun (carlacalhoun2004@yahoo.com) Source: Philippine National Red CrossDate: 06 Dec 2006

As typhoon Reming (international name: Durian) continues to move out of the country, thousands of affected families are left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Houses and infrastructure suffered massive damage from volcanic debris and mudflows from Mt. Mayon, leaving hundreds deadwhile survivors have sought refuge in packed evacuation centers.

Within hours of the disaster, the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) immediately deployed their local disaster response teams to heavilyafflicted areas for rescue and initial relief distribution.

Reports coming in from the field have placed the level of destruction much higher than during the recent typhoon Milenyo. Conflicting initial reports put the death toll anywhere between 200 and 500, and about 140,000 families badly affected. These figures are expected to rise significantly whencommunication lines are restored in areas including Catanduanes andSorsogon.

The PNRC sent three teams of experts yesterday to ravaged areas of Albay, Catanduanes, Camarines Sur, Quezon and Marinduque to gain a generalimpression of the scale of damage and to gauge the immediate needs ofaffected families there.

PNRC chairman Richard J. Gordon yesterday (Dec 2) flew over Albay andCatanduanes aboard a chopper and observed that, while there was apparently heavier loss of lives in Albay, reports indicate that Catanduanes seems to have suffered heavy damage to property and infrastructure. He also met with some government officials of Albay and Catanduanes who told him of their commitment to assist the affected families.

"Because of the typhoon's extensive damage to property and infrastructure," said Gordon, "many people are without roofs over their heads or access to essential services." He also noted that food and drinking water are inshort supply; details, however, as to the number of families and days they need to be served have not yet been finalized.

The most vulnerable communities, Gordon pointed out, are those living adistance away from the urban centers, whose farms have been heavilydamaged, with coconut plantations and rice fields, as well as banana and abaca groves rendered virtually unproductive for the next season.

"With little alternative sources of sustenance," said Gordon, "thesevulnerable communities need immediate relief to tide them over for theimmediate term, and then some assistance to get them back on their feetwith livelihood assistance.

"It is vital to help them regain their self-reliance and dignity, for this is the core humanitarian mission of the Red Cross: “ to help save lives, improve lives," added Gordon.

For his part, Roger Bracke, head of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) delegation in Manila, said of the aerial surveywith Gordon as well as of interviews with people on the ground that"communities are still shell-shocked" and that ongoing food distribution is "on a scale that is not relevant."

Bracke added that they saw about 80-150 buried houses with only the roofs showing, adding however that he cannot release any figures yet based onjust one visit. More assessment teams will be deployed in the coming days to help form a more complete picture of the typhoon damage.

The international community has been responding well to the disaster. The IFRC has released an initial emergency assistance of 100,000 Swiss Francs from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund, and is preparing to release aninternational appeal soon. The Netherlands Red Cross has pledged 40,000Euros.

The Canadian government has also pledged one million Canadian dollars, half of which was coursed through the IFRC and the other 500,000 through theCanadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

"We need to send out the message that, while we will dig into our ownresources in response to this disaster, our means are inadequate and wewill appreciate and welcome humanitarian assistance in whatever form that the world can extend to us in this time of great need," said Gordon.

As for local companies, the Rotary Club pledged to contribute in-kinddonations, while Globe Telecom is accepting donations through its G-Cash and Donate-A-Load programs. Smart Philippines, on the other hand, willdistribute relief supplies in Albay together with the PNRC on Monday.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the documents carried by theReliefWeb site are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by UN OCHA or the ReliefWeb secretariat. Inclusion of links to sites outside the United Nations does not imply endorsement of the contents of thosesites. Any user comments added to forwarded Email messages are those of the comment authors.

AND FINALLY: TEXT MESSAGES FROM RELIEF WORKERS IN THE DISASTER AREAS. I will cut and paste as they were sent to me. Salvador has provided "translations" of the shorthand texts and of some of the language where necessary.

Another typhoon hit the Philippines yesterday. The wind and rain was strong here in Cebu whole day and night. There are flooding here that caused traffic jams around the city. It even leaked in my house. They had to cancel the ASIAN SUMMIT, a meeting of heads of state in the region due to the weather. However, our woes here are nothing compared to the Bicol area. Jun Arcilla, a veteran of many disaster relief effort said that it is 100 times worse than the Leyte landslide disaster. Note recent few text messages I got....

Text messages from the local volunteers on the disaster area.....
"Never in a distant history dat Ligaspi, Albay, Daraga xperience dis DELUGE, Dis whole cities u can imagine were covered with flood waters more than 10ft. never be4. Its not an exageration wen I said its 100 times more than GUINSAUGON. Tens of towns ERASED. Manu ar buried, smel of death s all over in many places we saw." Jun Arcilla, preacher, Mandaue Church of Christ, working in the disaster area. 12/8 7:39 pm. Translation: "Never in a distant history that Daraga, Legaspi, Albay experienced this DELUGE. These whole cities you can imagine were covered with flood waters more than ten feet.
Never before. It is not an exageration when I said it is a hundred times more than GUINSAUGON. Tens of towns ERASED. Many are burried. Smell of deth are all over in many places we saw."

" I can feel d fear of d pepol nw dat again ders heavy dwnpour. Im afraid dis wl triger another mud flw at Mayon." Jun Arcilla, minister of Mandaue Church of Christ, working in the disaster area. Translation: "I can feel the fear of the people now that again there's heavy down pour. I am afraid this will trigger another mud flow at Mayon (Volcano)." Sent 12/9/06 at 10pm
"Pilar Sorsogon: Madilim sa labas mlakas ang ulan at hanging bagyo na dito dilikado na naman ang Mayon area. Divotional kami dito. Jst finis our diner with Adi family." Jun Arcilla 12/9/06 9:13 pm. Translation: " Pilar Sorsogon: It is dark outside. The rain and wind are very strong. It is typhoon again here. The Mayon (volcano) area is dangerous again. We are having devotional (service). Just finnished our dinner with the Adi family."
"Medyo mahangin at maulan d2 sa bayandong. Wer ok, nagtransfer kami ng place mas safety." Elmer Palacio, preacher in Babag, Lapu-Lapu City visiting Mayon where her sister's house was completely demolished. Sent 12/0/06 8pm.
Translation: "It is windy and raining hard here in Bayandon. We are ok. We trantransfere to a safer place."
"Ang mga lava frm vomayon sa brgy padang, Legaspi ang na grabehan, maraming namatayang town of St. Domingo mudlow and nakasira, un ang nadaanan namid. Malakas na ulan at medyo mahangin na rin." Elmer Palacio, sent 12/9 2:12 pm
Translation: " The lava from Mayon Volcano is worse in Padang, Legaspi. Many died in the town of St. Domingo due to destruction of the mudflow. We passed by there. The rain is strong and it is windy also."
"Some o most of d ppol hir dont ask clothes ecept sa mga naanod n natabonan ng haws, wat dey nid now, fud, medcine, n 4 rebuilding der house. I dont know kung bagyo nasad kini ron." Elmer Palacio. 12/9 3:04 pm. "Some or most of the people here do no t ask clothes except whose house was washed out or burried. What they need now are food, medicine, and for rebuilding their house. I do not know if another typhoon is coming."
"Im at bayandon na. Kawawa mga ung lugar at tao talaga, 368 hawhold, 207 totaly damage na mga bahay, naanod ung iba. Walang pagkukunan ng income dahil nasira lahat, bago lang kami nagusap sa capt nila." Elmer Palacio.
12/0 11:54 am Translation: "I am at Bayandon already. I feel pity for the place and the people. 368 house hold, 207 houses are totally damaged. Some were washed out. They have no source of income anymore because everything was destroyed. I just spoke to their local chief."


Salvador Cariaga
http://www.philippinechurchesofchrist.org/

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(Dec. 7, 2006)
Filipino Christian workers now on site
"Manila authorities say over 1200 dead. Hundreds of villages destroyed."
Two teams started serving the typhoon victims yesterday in Albay. Jun Arcilla, formerly from Catanduanes, now minister of Mandaue Church of Christ in Cebu, surveyed the area and interviewed the victims. He reported witnessing a sea of refugees. The constant rain is making matters worse for the rescuers and the survivors. The Philippine newspaper PDI estimated that over a million people were displaced with hundreds of villages wiped out.
Elmer Palacio, a preacher in Cebu has a sister in Bacacay, Albay. He said their home was totally destroyed. Her family was devastated and do not know where to go and what to do. A local official found her husband wandering in town aimlessly. I promised emergency fund to tied them over until we get there.
MARCH for Christ also have a small team in Albay. Gigi Caranza and Naga brethren are on site preparing a feeding program for the survivors. A joint medical and dental mission will be held early next week with Dr. Samuel Cariaga and other doctors. Preachers from the churches of Christ will also assist in the counseling and spiritual guidance. We hope to provide food and clothing during this mission. Later on, we hope to participate in the rebuilding program and help provide a new home for those who lost everything. We will also ask Philippine churches of Christ to contribute for this cause. Some have already offered used clothes and money.
BANDS (Body and Soul), led by Dr. John Bailey, has provided us the seed money to respond immediately. We will need $10,000 for next week's mission and more for the second and third. This will help with the medicine, food, clothes, and temporary shelter for the survivors. We also need a portion of this to transport volunteers, feed and house them. To help with this disaster effort , please send it to:



BandS Ministries
P.O. Box 1926
Colleyville, Texas 76034

You may contact Dr. Bailey at jcb2of3@sbcglobal.net www.bandsministries.org or send your help to your home church and they will contact us.
For local donations, please send it to

Jun Patricio c/o Makati Church of Christ.
1598 Archimedes St
Brg Lapaz Makati (near brgh hall)

We are negotiating with Manila brethren who are duly registered with the government to be official conduit of funds locally and abroad. The information should be available sometime today. For more information, please contact me or Jun Patricio at bonifaciopatricio@yahoo.com MARCH for Christ can be reached through Chito Cusi at lpcusi@yahoo.com


In His Service,

Salvador Cariaga
http://www.philippinechurchesofchrist.org/

Faithful Questioning

William of Saint-Thierry (ca. 1085-1148) was a French monk, theologian and "mystic" who had been a close friend of Bernard of Clairvaux. He was an early critic of the rationalistic theology later known as "Scholasticism," and opposed the rationalistic theology of Peter Abelard before Bernard of Clairvaux did so -- and in fact encouraged Bernard to oppose him.

He was not, however, by any means against asking questions or using one's intellect. He was not an irrationalist, neither was he antirational. What he opposed was questioning that seemed to him to be unfaithful and wholly rooted in cynicism rather than in faith and faithful pursuit of truth. Cynical questioning is rooted in pride rather than in discipleship.

In his work The Mirror of Charity, William wrote:

When more obscure mysteries are presented to your timid nature by your faith, Christian soul, take courage and say, "How are these to come about?", not in a controversial spirit but with the love of a disciple.

Let your questioning be your prayer, your love, your piety, your humble desire; not seeking to plumb the depths of God's majesty, but looking for salvation in the healing acts of God who saves us. And the Angel of great counsel will reply to you: "When the Counsellor comes, he whom I shall send from the Father, he will bring to mind all things, and teach you all truth." For no one "knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him; so also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."

Hasten then to be a sharer in the Holy Spirit. He is present when he is called upon; nor could he be called upon if he were not present. When, on being called upon, he comes, it is with the abundance of the blessings of God. He is the flowing of the river which gives joy to God's city.

And if, when he comes, he finds you humble and still and respecting the words of God, he will rest upon you; and he will reveal to you what God the Father withdraws from the wise and prudent of this world; and those things will begin to dawn upon you which Wisdom could say to the disciples when on this earth, but which they were unable to bear, until the Spirit of truth came who was to teach them all truth.

In the diligent seeking after or learning of these matters it would be vain to expect from any human teacher what cannot be sought or learnt from the lips of Truth himself. For as that Truth says, "God is spirit," and as it is necessary for those who adore him to do so in spirit and in truth, so for those who wish to learn of him or know him it is only in the Holy Spirit that the understanding of the faith and the perception of the pure and unadorned truth ought to be sought.

For in the darknesses and ignorance of this life, he is the light which enlightens the lowly of spirit; he is the love which draws us; he is the sweetening presence; he the human being's approach to God; he the love of the loving; he is devotion; he is piety.

He reveals to the faithful the justice of God which starts from faith and ends in faith; when for grace he gives grace, and for the faith which is by hearing the faith which gives light.

One More Way our Tax $$ Pay for Torture

http://www.alternet.org/stories/44965/

Wallis radio address

A radio address by Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics, and head honcho of Sojourners, a non-partisan PAC that tries to get political leaders to pay attention to Christian moral values. Wallis was invited by new Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid "to deliver their weekly radio address and speak about the values that could unite Americans at this critical time" as a conscious attempt to "set a new tone" for politics and leadership in the United States.

http://www.sojo.net/special/multimedia/061201_wallis_radio_address.mp3