NO EMAIL, NO BIG DEAL

Our office is now five weeks and counting without email. Well, not totally; most of the time it's down, but some of the time, it's up briefly and then shuts down. something about a mail server filling up and then not being accessible.

For someone like me who lives on email, it's been a test of my patience. I have failed miserably. Were it not for my dislike of cleaning up messes or buying new stuff, I would have thrown many things in my office up against a wall. Instead, I quietly seethe.

Last week, after yet another person called me to ask why I hadn't responded to their email or gotten back to them on something they'd invited me to by email, I told them our email was down 98% of the time. I described to him how it reminded me of my two weeks in Albania in 1994, when the village in which I was living had running water for one hour a day: 4am to 5am. So we put a big tub underneath the faucet, left the faucet on, and then woke up the next morning to see one hour's worth of water in the tub -- all the water we'd have to use that day for bathing, washing clothes, and boiling for drinks.

After I told that story, though, I thought a bit about how relatively insignificant it is that I have no email. Sure, business and personal communications have been thrown asunder. But I was reminded that most of the people in the world lack steady access to something more important: running water. I thought of all of the water I'd used in the past five weeks -- heck, in the past five hours -- without which my life would truly have been inconvenienced.

Maybe being without email isn't so bad, if you put it in the perspective that I'm fortunate enough to be in the minority of the earth's inhabitants that can flush a toilet, take a shower, do a load of laundry, and wash my hands. I still hope for our email services to return. But maybe I'll be a little more patient now.

DANCING AROUND A HOT TOPIC

I just got back from the Opportunities Conference in Washington DC, a gathering of Asian-American and Hispanic-American leaders on the subject of community economic development that was hosted by the Department of Labor. All in all, I was inspired and impressed by the event, both in its content and in the diversity and size of the group in attendance.

However, I was a little disappointed that none of the speakers mentioned anything related to the undercurrent of indignation in our country over the loss of jobs to overseas and immigrant workers. Many Americans still fear what Ross Perot called "that great sucking sound" of jobs being lost to south of the border in Mexico. Asians and Hispanics are often vilified in our cities as the recent immigrants who come in and take away jobs and commercial opportunities. Unions are in an uproar over the millions of American jobs being lost as manufacturing and customer service call centers gets outsourced to India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. And Congress just slashed the number of H1B visas allowed per year, curtailing the number of high-end high-tech jobs in the US that could be filled by immigrants from Pakistan, China, and Japan.

We are in an election year, after a recession that raised unemployment, and now in the midst of what many economists are calling a "jobless recovery" (i.e. the economy is heating up again, but it isn't yet translating into lower unemployment). A nation that has lost jobs into the millions is looking for scapegoats and solutions. And I can't help but feel an uneasiness in the Asian and Hispanic communities, that they are feeling the scrutiny of the unhappy and unemployed.

To be sure, maybe this wasn't the setting to tackle such a sensitive and inflammatory issue. The tenor of the speeches were gracious and motivational, as they should have been. Still, I came to the conference curious to see how this hot topic would be addressed. And I left a little disappointed that it had been danced around.

TOO YOUNG

I just got off the phone with a former student of mine. He was one of a group of four that lived near our office, one of the first kids I got to know when I started working at The Enterprise Center. He called, among other things, to let me know how he was doing and to ask my help with a business he's thinking of starting. But he also called to tell me that one of his old friends from the block, one of the group of four, was recently killed.

The news hit me like a dull thud. He didn't have any details on how it happened, but knew that it was recently. He said he thought I'd want to know. He then went on to tell me that another of the group of four wasn't doing so great; I told him that I'd seen the fourth member of his boyhood crew, and that that fourth guy seemed to be doing OK.

As we talked more, he went on about how much trouble I had kept him out of, how grateful he was for me looking out for him. I honestly couldn't think of anything spectacular that I had done for this guy; I guess I tried when I could to be a reliable and encouraging adult in his life. From what I heard from this old student of mine, being that for him helped save his life.

Unfortunately, I can't help but think about the other guy, the one that was killed recently. This was a good kid. It boggles my mind that he is gone, having not even lived two decades on this earth. I wonder what kind of anguish his mother must be going through, a sweet woman who was always nice to me when I would visit their house.

There is no tidy summary statement to conclude this entry. For I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I am appreciative of one young man's kind words to me, to call me and tell me what a difference I've made in his life. And I am saddened to hear of the passing of another young man, saddened that too many young men in this neighborhood die too young.

UNITED NATIONS

Even as the US’s post-war plans languish in Iraq, I maintain the same stance I had twelve months ago: reluctantly pro-war. That is to say, hindsight has not changed my mind that it was a good thing that the US took assertive action, against popular sentiment and UN action, to wage war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

My reluctance back then is the same as now, a twofold regret: that war had to happen at all, and that the US had to do it alone without UN action. I am neither a hawk who relishes war nor a dove who loathes it; so if I believe there is a just cause for war, I will support it, but with regrets. And while I wish such actions could be taken with broader support – both moral, financial, and military – if the UN is toothless and unable to enforce its own resolutions, I don’t mind if my leaders and my country are willing to go it alone.

I read a book review in The Economist today about the United Nations, and how American power was even more pronounced back then than it is now. After all, all of the other major nations of the world were either vanquished and/or war-torn. American production hummed along to the degree that it is estimated that it accounted for over half of the world’s output. And at the time of the creation of the United Nations, the US was just months away from unveiling an atomic bomb, a weapon no other country could even sniff of yet having.

And yet, at the height of its military victory and political power, Harry S Truman took the baton from an ailing Franklin Roosevelt – for whom the UN was a pet project that took up a lot of his time, even in the midst of fighting a war on two fronts – and pressed hard for the formation of the United Nations. Let me quote from The Economist:

“At the peak of America’s powers, its leaders were determined to create a multilateral institution involving as many nations as possible as a primary mechanism for ensuring American, as well as global, security. In his speech before the San Francisco conference [where the UN was founded], Truman was explicit about the price of doing so. ‘We all have to recognize – no matter how great our strength – that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.’ For America itself, Truman argued, this was a price well worth paying. The contrast with the attitude of most subsequent American governments, and especially the current one, could not be more stark.”

“We all have to recognize – no matter how great our strength – that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.” I am reminded of the bookend quotes of the book of Judges, in which “everyone did as he pleased.” Morally, politically, sexually, militarily – when we are powerful, we ought to be careful to be humble. For disaster lurks when we allow our might and freedom to corrupt us into thinking we know best for ourselves and others. Though I remain, as before, reluctantly pro-war, I am realizing that we are treading on treacherous ground. I am humbled by the amount of humility we need to have, the type of humility apparent in Truman’s words, the kind of humility I fear I do not see in our country or its leaders at the moment.

SKELETONS IN THE CHURCH CLOSET

I am on a committee at church that is coordinating our mission study; that is, our church-wide effort to understand God’s will for our congregation, so that we are better able to call a full-time senior pastor. Given the rich history and diversity of our church, it has been a fascinating exercise, which we hope will conclude with a clear and inspiring mission statement from which to head boldly into the future.

But we are wise enough to know that the best way to look ahead is to first look back, to see the foundation from which we are building. After all, there is much in our church that we can grab onto as honoring to God, that we would be remiss to neglect in our pursuit of what lies ahead. And so we spent a Sunday evening together as a congregation, telling stories about our church’s recent past.

Although I use the word “recent” liberally, for some in our midst first attended our congregation in the late 1940’s. So we had a lot of stories, personalities, and trends batting around that night. And lo and behold that some of the racial unrest of the 1960’s bubbled up to the surface.

I think it is the general impression of congregants and of outside observers that our church is remarkably racially diverse. Given that we sit at a nexus university transients, recent immigrants, and neighborhood old-timers, and that we have always drawn from that immediate circle, it is not surprising that many skin tones, languages, and countries of origin can be found worshipping together on Sunday morning. It is a diversity that is one of our strengths, and one of the ways our congregation’s existence is pleasing to God.

And yet, we too have skeletons in our closet. One particular skeleton became known to me at this Sunday evening forum, but was driven home by follow-up conversations our coordinating committee had last night. Seems that in the 1960’s, the congregation was not the most welcoming to black families. We accepted a few, begrudgingly, which, if graded on a curve, would put us ahead of most churches at the time. But God doesn’t grade on a curve. And as one of our old-timers, a quiet Caucasian woman, pointed this out on Sunday evening, some in our midst got defensive, others uncomfortable. The big pink elephant called race, which is in the middle of almost every room in America, had been identified. And a general unease spread through the room. Not long after, we moved on to another subject.

I found out at our coordinating committee last night, there was a massive decline in membership when one pastor was replaced by another. The party line was that the previous pastor was more relational, while the new pastor wasn’t as much so. Last night, I found out the real deal. The new pastor, upon arriving at our church, worked really hard to welcome a black family he had befriended into the congregation. Over the course of a few years, a membership of 400 had plummeted to 100, as many white people and families left.

As I shared tonight, our church, like any organized group of people, is like a dysfunctional family. We know what are the subjects we aren’t to talk about, and we keep a vigilant silence about them. The job of a good therapist, of course, is to bring that family together and make them talk about those unmentionables. To put a spiritual spin on this analogy, unrepented sin continues to fester, and cripples or even negates a church’s ability to be healthy.

What an opportunity, I proclaimed, for us to “do therapy” for our congregation; to put the unmentionables out into the open, and humbly and repentantly confess them to be part of our organization-wide past, its effects seeping into the present. Race is not an issue to be addressed lightly, and the committee struggled to know how to appropriately address it without either shortchanging it or thinking we could solve it in a season. But I think our conversation last night was a good start, in that it reminded us that we too have skeletons in our closet, and that the healthy and functional thing to do as a church family is to discuss them openly and prayerfully.

HE WHO HAS AUTHORITY OVER THE WEATHER

I was planning on posting something this evening, to document the crazy day I'd just gone through. For as I looked at my schedule this morning, I realized I had eight meetings scheduled, going from 8:00am until 10:00pm. And the meetings ran the gamut of activities that my life consists of -- speaking at a board meeting, attending a reception, hosting an open house for parents of participating students, even loading donated books into our storage room -- so I figured to describe the day would be a great way to document what my life is like in September 2003.

But Isabel got in the way.

Hurricane Isabel has hit areas much harder than ours, but the domino effect of panic and caution has caused meetings to get cancelled, and in turn for me to cancel a couple of meetings I myself had called. And so here I am in the office, during a pocket of time I'd carved out a month before to orient advanced-level students in our after-school program, all of a sudden with time on my hands. So I blog.

The irony is that I read in my morning devotions about a Savior who was asleep in a boat while His disciples screamed at the top of their lungs for Him to arise and help them navigate the choppy seas. Jesus arose, more annoyed that His disciples didn't quite get that He had authority even over the winds and waves than that someone had interrupted His nap; and with a hearty rebuke, the storm subsided.

It's days like today, when I've packed meeting after meeting only to have most of them postponed due to weather, that I am reminded that there is a God who has authority to bring the wind and waves as well as calm them. And I am humbled, put in my place where I ought to be.

MAKING THE PITCH

Today is the first day of orientations for our after-school business program for teens. Which means it's time to get into schools and recruit students. I hitched a ride this morning with a friend of mine who teaches at a high school in Southwest Philadelphia. I had scheduled to circulate through classrooms in the business annex during 2nd period, but got there an hour before 1st period, just to see if I could crack into any other small learning communities.

Unfortunately, after waiting for almost an hour, I wasn't able to locate anyone who could help me. So I made my way to the business annex, and the coordinator there was nice enough to get me into classrooms one period early. There were six pods, to be exact, and at each one I made essentially the same pitch: that I'm a talent scout, looking for future entrepreneurs, and that my program is the best place for future entrepreneurs to develop their skills and their business ideas.

This year, we've produced blue cards and yellow cards to pass out. The blue cards have info on our program and on when the orientations are, for those who want to join. The yellow cards are for interested students to fill out, so we can collect them and follow up by phone later on to extend another invitation to join. Out of about 150 students, I got back about 60 cards.

We will try to speak to about 3000 students in the next three weeks, in order to get the 30-40 who will eventually join our program. It is exciting to think that among the students I spoke to this morning, there might be one or two or five who will end up becoming really involved in our after-school program and therefore really important to me.

To continue the talent scout analogy, it's like being a college football recruiter or a music producer, combing the neighborhoods and schools for the next big star. I told the students I spoke to this morning that the kind of talent I was looking for was way more important to our community than future quarterbacks and rappers. By making an invitation to join our program, I was vying for the privilege to help shape and mold future business leaders.

ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS

Every week, I get together with two Christian guys to confess sin and to pray. We have been meeting for five years now, and I can't tell you how invaluable and precious this accountability time is. I don't take for granted the blessing of being able to share moral failures and be prayed for, to be there for a brother in need, and to together experience the love and grace and presence of God.

In the time we've been together as accountability partners, two of us have gotten married, and a third ties the knot in a month. One of us has had a baby. All of us have had major catastrophes to share and grievous sins to confess. And God has heard us all along, as we stumble together towards the kinds of lives He wills for us.

I thank God for my two accountability partners, and for the discipline of accountability. They are constant reminders of the kinds of things we need to be reminded of: that we're not perfect, that we need God, that we fall short of His standard for our lives, and that He loves us deeply and dearly. I am grateful for my weekly reminders, grateful I can be a weekly reminder.

(If you're wondering, here is a list of sins we ask each other if we've committed: poor self-image, anxiety, regret, covetousness, bitterness, impatience, jealousy, despondency, self-adulation, sexual immorality, critical spirit, divisiveness, drivenness, deceitfulness, and gossip. We also leave room for general praises and prayer requests.)

A GOOD START TO A CONGREGATIONAL CONVERSATION

We hosted our first Sunday evening forum for our church's mission study. Ever try to come up with a mission statement in a group? The larger and more diverse the group, and the more you desire inclusion and participation, the harder and longer the process. Well, our church is relatively large (not in comparison to other churches, but in comparison to other groups with which you might do a visioning process), very diverse, and seeks to foster inclusion and participation.

And yet the start of this three-month-long process has been good. Our interim pastor reviewed "The Purpose-Driven Church," a book by Rick Warren whose principles we are using to guide our new direction. Then he shared some of his ideas about focuses and opportunities he could see our church pursuing. Then (the best part), he opened things up for discussion from congregants. I'd like to summarize some of the things that were said, so you can get a sense of the content and flow of this dynamic conversation:

* With upper-income folks moving in and buying houses, and lower-income families being pushed out (i.e. gentrification), what are the ministry opportunities for our church, and what can/should we as a church do about these demographic trends?

* After many of the comments about gentrification danced around the issue of race, one of our elders said, "Race is an issue. The gospel speaks to reconciliation. So let's get that on the discussion table."

* While we assess our past and plan for our future, we should be humble enough as individuals and as a church to be repentant about ways in which we have fallen short of God's plans for us.

* With all the talk about the young scholars in this university setting, let's not forget the young people who aren't affiliated with an academic institution, but who hold down jobs and have real-world concerns.

* The elder statesmen amongst us asked that we not forget them and their faith perspective from having been in the neighborhood and in the congregation for many decades.

* One new young professional shared of how and why she decided to choose our church when their family moved to Philadelphia.

Next week we look at our church's 137-year history: who and what has been significant, so that we can build from that, and what core values God has impressed upon our collective hearts over the years. Should be yet another interesting dialogue.

LEGISLATING MORALITY

There were two types of debate in my high school: Lincoln-Douglas and Oxford. Lincoln-Douglas was one-on-one, values-oriented; Oxford two against two, based on evidence. I did Oxford all four years, but was familiar with the people that did Lincoln-Douglas. My first full year in debate, while we Oxford folks haggled over prison overcrowding, the Lincoln-Douglas topic was "Is it right to legislate morality in a democratic society?" We Oxford debaters liked to haggle over that one, in between researching positions and accumulating evidence for our own subject of prison overcrowding.

But over a decade later, the question still hangs in the air. Is it right to legislate morality in a democratic society? As I blog away, I am filled with more questions than answers. Most people would agree that it is right to legislate that there are certain crimes against society that the government will defend against by punishing offenders. But even then, is making murder illegal, punishable by a life sentence, a matter of legislating morality or simply protecting the common good?

I call this old Lincoln-Douglas topic to mind as the nation debates over gay marriages; the conservative front argues that marriage must be defended as a sacred institution. That sounds like legislating morality. Whether or not you are for gay marriages, you must answer the question of whether legislating morality is something democratic societies ought to do. Again, I think there is something deeper here than protecting society. Call me uptight, but I feel morality is important enough that it shouldn't be a means to an end, but an end unto itself. In other words, I'm uncomfortable saying that morality should be legislated in a democratic society as a means to protecting society.

But then I'm left with two undesirable choices: impose morality on everyone, when not everyone agrees with my morality; or allow for a moral free-for-all, which not only is chaotic to society but is detrimental to the innate moral fabric of humans and Americans. My Lincoln-Douglas friends had to be prepared to persuasively argue both sides of this debate. I too find myself finding persuasive arguments on both sides.

SPENDING ON CHURCH BUILDINGS

Our session had a heated and fascinating discussion last night, on the topic of spending money to do an architectural assessment of our physical space, in conjunction with our strategic planning for the future of our congregation. It was fascinating to me because of the quality and passion behind the arguments on both sides.

In one camp was a group of people who was hesitant to spend a lot of money for architectural professionals to make recommendations, knowing that we would then have to spend even more money to follow through on those recommendations and turn them into plans, designs, and finally construction. In another camp was a group of people who felt that moving in this direction was crucial to the future of our congregation: if we don't improve our decaying physical plant, we run the risk of safety hazards, losing congregants who don't wish to bring their children to Sunday School classrooms in dark basements, and being handicapped in our ability to attract a senior pastor to our street corner.

Where was I in the fray? I believe God does not dwell in structures built by human hands. And I am leery of making it a necessity to have a shiny new building in order to attract worshippers and ministers. On the other hand, I understand (my mother being an architect) that what architects do is maximize a building's ability to serve the people that use it. And I want to be among a leadership team that exercises the kind of long-term perspective that says, "For the sake of our church's next fifty years, we're going to be the ones that sign off on having a plan to do something about our physical plant; rather than patching things up reactively, we want to be proactive in doing what will be good for this church building for now until 2053."

As a homeowner, I try to remember that my house is not my god, but that God is my God and that, having provided us with our house, we ought to be good stewards of it. And an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Even it means expensive maintenance, plans, and construction. Furthermore, I realize that while my house is the biggest asset on my balance sheet, the people that live inside it are worth far more. Nevertheless, there are ways we can improve our home to serve those residents, without giving in to the idolatry of "keeping up with the Joneses" or paying for things that are wasteful. Therefore, I side with those who seek to move forward on the architectural plans, because I think we ought to treat our church home the same way.

BACK IN THE OFFICE

After 365 days out of the office, I've hung the shingle up at 4548 Market Street once again. Last night and this morning, I felt like I was getting ready for my first day of school: I set my alarm for an ungodly hour, laid out my clothes for the next day, got to bed at a decent time, had fitful sleep, woke up slightly dreading and slightly delighting in the day ahead, and made myself lunch while I ate breakfast.

I got into the office around 8, and immediately started making my little corner of it (I share a lab area with four co-workers and 30+ teen participants) feel more like home. Maps on the wall, files from home now organized in the file cabinet, laptop plugged in. By 9, I was done, and twiddling my thumbs.

Only slighly kidding. It is slow around here, as our after-school program doesn't kick off for another thirty days, and a mass mailer we were scheduled to collate today had to be delayed a day. But I did have some administrative things to tend to, like making travel arrangements for a business trip later on in the month or outlining lecture topics for our fall classes.

The biggest adjustment so far has been being here all day. My last meeting today is at 5:30, so I will have been here from 8ish to 6ish. And this after a year of "working at home," when even on days I am really at home working all day (i.e. not on the road, no meeting or errand to run), work time is interspersed with laundry, pushups, cooking, and ESPN.com. Plus my office has no windows, so even when I'm cooped up at home, at least I can turn around from my desk and see . . . the side of my neighbor's house.

But it has been nice reuniting with my co-workers. Being with them is what I've missed the most, so it's assuring to know I'll be settling into a work routine with them. We've got an exciting year ahead, and today's just the first day.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

It's weak that this is my blog entry, given that I haven't blogged for two weeks. It's just that 1) I've been doing a lot of writing (the draft of "Somewhere in Between" is now done, and is currently in the hands of my review committee), and 2) football season is less than a week away. So without further ado, here are my predictions for 2003-2004:

NFC North: 4 Packers, Lions, Bears, Vikings
NFC South: 3 Falcons, 5 Bucs, Saints, Panthers
NFC East: 1 Eagles, Giants, Cowboys, Redskins
NFC West: 2 49ers, 6 Rams, Seahawks, Cardinals

AFC North: 1 Steelers, Browns, Ravens, Bengals
AFC South: 2 Titans, Colts, Jaguars, Texans
AFC East: 3 Dolphins, 5 Patriots, Bills, Jets
AFC West: 4 Raiders, 6 Chiefs, Broncos, Chargers

Wild-Card Round:
NFC: Packers over Bucs, Falcons over Rams
AFC: Raiders over Patriots, Chiefs over Dolphins

Divisional Playoffs:
NFC: Eagles over Packers, 49ers over Falcons
AFC: Steelers over Chiefs, Raiders over Titans

Championship Games:
NFC: Eagles over 49ers
AFC: Steelers over Raiders

Super Bowl:
Eagles over Steelers, 30-21