Reflections and Explorations

The question, “what are the effects of illiteracy for the civilization” immediately conjures up notions that illiteracy is a problem to be rectified through intensive campaigns of reading and writing development. This essay will propose that there are indeed consequences of illiteracy for civilization based on the driving assumptions that success, development, and progress can only be possible through certain forms of engagement, particularly the skills of literacy.

However, the essay will also propose that illiteracy is not the “problem” it is understood to be; that in fact, illiteracy actually serves these driving assumptions well and thus, it is a necessary aspect of the civilization that is structured in the way that it is.

Additionally, illiteracy and the impetus to eradicate it reveals the deeper issue of the devaluing of other ways of being that are essential to a more cohesive civilization. Such devaluing becomes the platform for the regression, rather than the progression, of civilization which increased literacy can serve to mask, though only for a time.

In other words, the immediate benefits of rectifying illiteracy toward mitigating its immediate effects on civilization are overtaken by the greater consequences of the devaluing of other forms of communication and ways of being that are more effective for promoting civilization. Literacy does not deal with the deeper issues of human social engagement upon which truly great civilization is built. Thus, should everyone be able to read and write, there would still be the economic, well-being, and access to resource disparities that have been identified in the lives of those who are experiencing illiteracy.

In a social construct that values the global over the local, GDP growth over the meeting of peoples’ needs, and “development” as the necessary evidence of good civilization, illiteracy can be a formidable enemy to those who are a part of the civilization. At best, it perpetuates the fallacy of this social construct, and at worst, leads to the exclusion to the margins of those who cannot participate resulting in higher unemployment, lower income, reduced health and limited practices for self-care, as well as disconnectedness which in turn results in (often large) pockets of poverty, dependence, reduced productivity and reduced quality of life, often cycling through generations.

At the same time, it is to the advantage of the civilization formed in this way to have a portion of its population be illiterate as it ensures their local service to the global demand without aspiration for more which would jeopardize the necessary supply and demand balance that keeps this structure functioning.

Illiteracy also ensures the emphasis upon growth and economic development for the financial stakeholders who want the greatest gain for the least possible investment. It is necessary that there be people who can only serve the outcomes which are attractive to these stakeholders rather than participate in them.

Beyond the immediate rewards and consequences to respective individual people, illiteracy and the push to eradicate it reveals a social construct that is rooted in the stronger over the weaker, exploitation of the many for the gain of the few, a readiness to isolate people and exclude other valuable ways of coming together that promote a stronger civilization with a broader portfolio of engagement.

Finally, illiteracy and devaluing of other methods of communication beyond reading and writing, reveal an insidious, though perhaps unconscious, push for what is deemed a more human humanity, i.e. optimal development of the human to ensure the optimal outcomes for the civilization as understood through success, development and progress.

Yet, what of the other, more sustainable aspects of civilization. In pockets where illiteracy is high, there are also skills of communication, resilience and engagement that are oven overlooked as valuable to the progress of civilization. Consider the power of the oral tradition and communication through the arts such as drawings and paintings, stained glass and music that have tied the story of life together with a language that all could understand and act upon. There is significant movement around the world of people flocking to museums and various tourist sites to see the evidences of generations long gone, their way of being incompatible with how we do life today. Yet for many, these evidences speak powerfully about the things that bind us, and our deep longing for cohesiveness and sustainable integration rooted in people rather than systems, structures and the push for predefined and approved outcomes that in the end, only optimally benefit a few.

Today, those that hold the power are those that can manage ever-changing waves of written information. But, can they manage people, relationships, and shared story – the very constants that have remained through every generation of civilization? It is the push to human capital for the purpose of production measured by the economy of money, from the relational capital for the sake of cohesion and shared experience measured by the economy of human dignity and community that has generated the very negative effects that illiteracy reveals and that literacy campaigns believe they can fix.

Thus, the only true effect of illiteracy for civilization is that it readily reveals the limits of the civilization to reach its full potential, particularly when such civilization is structured around success, development and progress. Illiteracy thus serves to reveal the heart of a civilization focused on an economy of outcomes that can only benefit the few, and thus its eradication will only temporarily mitigate the consequences to an individual, and to the civilization.

I was given the opportunity to see the movie, 90 Minutes in Heaven, the story of Don Piper who died in a horrific accident only to come back to life after spending 90 minutes in Heaven. I didn’t know what to think when I first heard about the movie, and honestly, I didn’t feel all that compelled to see it but when the opportunity came up I thought, sure – why not.

Off the top, I would say – go see it. But not for the usual reasons you might go to a movie.

I could speak to the acting, the cinematography, the basic cohesiveness or strength of the story line – kind of all the things that you might normally write about in a movie review. These were good- not “Jason Bourne” stellar but good.

Instead, what sticks with me are the following three thoughts:

First, this is a movie that will challenge your understanding of what it means to live, “your will done on earth as it is in heaven” – that phrase in the Lord’s prayer we tend to pray (whether we go to church or not) without really thinking about it.

Don’s experience challenges us to not pit heaven against earth. He has a taste of heaven and as a result wants nothing to do with earth anymore. He becomes so “heavenly minded and attached” that he becomes no earthly good because he does not want to be back. That just isn’t God’s heart at all. He came from heaven to earth because He couldn’t stand heaven and earth being separated and against each other.

On the flip side of that same coin, we are not to endure earth until we get to heaven. Earth is not a stop in a cheap, sketchy (maybe even dangerous) motel along the way to the five-star resort. Instead, we are to allow our encounters with God and the tastes of heaven he gives us (whether it’s 90 minutes in heaven or some other amazing experience) to compel us to live life to the full and to motivate us to share with others so that they too may have opportunity to not only taste heaven, but one day experience its fullness.

Second, the movie portrays a raw, pain-filled journey. I’m not sure if anyone can watch it without being touched in some similar places in their own hearts. There is no dancing around the anger, self-pity and pain of Don (though these are not blown up either for the sake of “drama”) and the impact on those around him, especially his wife who was put through the wringer by Don’s anger at being “sent back”.

There are no pulling of punches around some tough conversations from people who weren’t afraid to speak hard truths and essentially tell Don to smarten up and get his act together. It’s a gutsy portrayal of human nature and interactions all too familiar to most of us, which is what could make it hard to watch. Because it is longer than what you might think it should be, you don’t get a chance to get past this before it can grab your heart. This piece is long enough to force you to sit in the truth; to know that the suffering was real and you can’t just watch it and coast with your emotions.

Third, the movie was a call to blessing, offering, and perseverance, and to believe for others when they don’t, won’t, or simply can’t anymore. The movie portrays people picking up the balls of faith, perseverance, compassion, hope and down right gritty fight for the next steps. These had been dropped through Don’s unwillingness to fight, his unbelief in any good reason to fight and his disengagement with all those that longed for him to get well and go home to his family and ministry.

In short, see the movie. But not for entertainment. See it to see yourself and to see the amazing things that can happen when you pray, “your will done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The call to love is no respecter of persons. I may not know who will walk through the door, or across my path each day, but that doesn’t change the call. God moves toward us even while we are at our worst. We are to give witness to such grace by doing the same with others.

That doesn’t mean we are to tolerate abuse, mistreatment, injustice and the like. To do so is the opposite of love. In such instances, love names it and calls for repentance – a turning of heart and a change in action – and where there is none, separation even fleeing if one can/must.

But we must also be careful to not quickly label unreasonableness as abuse, or arrogance as oppression, or whatever immature expression of self one dishes out at an another as injustice. Sometimes we are simply being the ornery, childish, selfish people we can be.

Our redemption is at hand yet not complete. We are filled with the Spirit yet we often do what we don’t want to do. Love and move toward one another as a shared expression of the hope we have in Christ; as a witness to the world that we are his disciples; and, in confidence that God’s redemptive activity is not stopped by any foolish thing we can do.

Let us strive to reveal:

• the kindness of God which leads to repentance
• the compassion of God which leads to our comforting
• the patience of God which leads to our redemption

Let us love regardless of who walks through the door or across our path.

As we love, let us entrust ourselves to the God who judges all things rightly and loves while no respecter of persons.

Another year is coming to a close. For the most part, there were not a whole lot of surprises over this past year. The changes were expected even if the ways those changes came about were not.

As I sit here, occasionally staring out the window at the snow coming down, I find myself where I am most days – trying to get traction. I have things to do, people to see, and decisions to make – even preparations for Christmas to complete – but most of it seems like a grabbing of the wind. Some days it is hard to get going.

At the beginning of the year I wrote about shaking up priorities. Now, quite honestly, I’m trying to sort out what my priorities are. I wanted to see more of some people; that didn’t happen. I wanted to spend more time doing the things I love to do; I’m doing those things even less often than I was.  I wanted to do something meaningful, ethical, impacting and leaving me in a financial position to be generous to those who need some good news and dignifying help in their lives. Still working on that.

Not that this past year was bad. In fact, some amazing and wonderful things happened. Yet in the deeper, unseen currents of my heart and mind I have, for most of the year, had a strong sense that I need to keep my eyes open for something new. I spoke with someone back in the summer and said that I thought whatever the next steps were going to be for me, they were going to fit in the category of the unexpected. It would not be a “logical” next step. It would not fit a trajectory of where I have been, though it would certainly not happen without where I have been.

I considered Abraham going from Ur to Canaan; Joseph going from the sheep pastures to second in command to Pharoah; Gideon going from hiding in the winepress to being the judge and deliverer of his nation; David going from the sheep pastures to the throne room; Peter going from fishing with his brother to writing letters that would shape people’s thoughts 2000 years later; Paul getting knocked off his horse (literally) and the direction of his life and of millions of others’ lives changed forever. I considered my own dad and how he finished his days in another country doing what no one, not even him, ever expected he would be doing.

The key to these stories and many more, is that not one of these men had any idea what was coming down the pipe; not one of them woke up one morning and planned to be where they were by the end of the day, and later, at the end of their lives.

I am more persuaded than ever that I am going to find myself in the completely unexpected, especially as I begin to explore options that to this point, simply aren’t “landing in my wheelhouse”.

The saying now is, “Every cloud has a silver lining”. John Milton coined the phrase ‘silver lining’ in Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634

I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were
To keep my life and honour unassailed.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

I remember getting exposed to John Milton in high school and for the first time in my education to that point, poetry made sense to me. There was something about Milton’s brooding yet honest grasping for something “more” that resonated with me.

I think that I am in good company with many others on this. Almost 400 years after Milton penned the words “did a sable cloud turn forth her silver lining”, they are stilll with us, though now modified. We use them with great ease to define how we navigate through those difficult times when dark clouds are hovering over our lives and we are searching for meaning. We even divide people up between those who only see the clouds (grumpy, negative and pessimistic) and those who manage to see the silver lining in those clouds (happy, positive and optimistic).

But for Milton, I don’t think it really was about the cloud or its silver lining as the end point. I think it might have been about how each functioned to help Milton navigate through his “tufted grove” with a right perspective…with honour intact.

Though it is still used, “tufted” is not as common a word today as it would have been in Milton’s time. It speaks to density created by outlying and regular depressions. Check out your mattress sometime. Unless yours is simple and a standard minimum, it probably has a tufted texture created by the stitching which forms patterned depressions and by doing so also creates pockets of density. The depressions and density together make your mattress more comfortable to sleep on, increasing the possibility for a good rest.

As Milton reflects, it is not lost on him that the sable (dark) cloud is positioned to cause a redirect of light from the One committed to guarding his life and honour as he navigates his tufted grove. The point for him is to let his eyes follow the silver lining that the cloud reflects to its source, until he sees more – the “Supreme Good”.

What’s my point.

Our lives are filled with highs and lows, densities (mountain tops) and depressions (valleys). Ours is not to see either just the dark clouds (and become pessimistic) or just their silver lining (optimism to the point of denying reality) but, first, to see that there is no silver lining without the clouds.

Then, it is for us to receive equally both the sable clouds and their gleam of the silver lining as a gift given to help us discover “more.” We are invited to look beyond both to the same “Supreme Good” Milton learned to see; he who sent the glistering guardian to meet our need and bring us to rest, because he is committed to guarding our life and honour as we navigate through our own tufted grove.

It has been almost three months since I first stepped into this transitional season in my life. I have walked a few of these over the years. Each one has been unique and yet there has been a common thread of release, rest, reflection, recapturing a more complete sense of self, revisioning God, reorienting and getting ready for the next adventure.

Maybe it’s because I am just a tad older than I was the last time I entered this kind of season, but I have found this one to be sharply different in how each of those many “r’s” has played out. There is a distinct steadiness and deep rootedness, even in the low days when I briefly wonder if there is a “next”.

Today, as I sat on my kitchen floor playing with my dog and praying to my God (careful not to tongue-twist this one) I noted that I am far enough along in life to realize there are things I will not be doing. Choices have been made over the years that have carved a bit of a trajectory that make some things I might have once thought of doing no longer a consideration.

Not a rut; a trajectory. My life is far from over and there are still many things I haven’t done that I intend to have a go at. I am, after all, a bit of a connoisseur. I like to try a lot of things long enough to get rather good at them and not try to master only one or two. I live life like a banquet table not a restaurant menu.

Consider a tree, whose roots spread further underground as the years go by. There comes a time when the tree is not going to be movable and will simply work on becoming all that it was designed to be. It will, as it matures, branch out and there will be fairly predictable times of growth, fruit, blazes of glory, shedding and settling in for a quieter time. Through these repeated cycles it can be shaped in all kinds of ways, have some things grafted in, and other things pruned out. It will become a compelling presence if well cared for.

I am more than a tree but I think the imagery is a good starting place. There comes a time when it is good to embrace who we are, what we can and cannot offer, get rooted, build on strong foundations and reach for the stars, all within an increasingly defined, and hopefully also increasingly glorious, existence.

I am not all that I should be, nor am I all that I will be. Therein lies my solidarity with every other person and the world in which we live. Therein lies the room for further creativity and new adventures, yet also confident adherence to what has already been rightly established. Therein lies the opportunity to continue to live in the tension of unclear dreams and uncertain horizons while taking one step at a time on solid ground.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” – Jeremiah 17:7-8

Today I begin a new season having once again taken the leap into the unknown believing it was time to do so. As I closed out my role at Kids Alive over the past couple of weeks, I noted that at some point in each day God gave me a gift of affirmation of the decision. Whether it was something I read, or a word from a friend or colleague, a repeated phrase from various sources unknown to each other, or a whisper in my soul, I felt a freedom and peace that had been restrained in me starting to have a voice again, renewing my energy, bringing further clarity to my understandings and stabilizing my emotions.

Today I know that I am in the midst of receiving at least part of the gift of Year of Jubilee – a release and opportunity to hit the reset button. While I will take time to reflect over the past three years, there is no “looking back” longing for what was or wishing it could have been different. I have no regrets, no second thoughts, no wondering about what could have been. Not that all things went well. It was not a place of flourishing for me though it was a formative place and a necessary place for me to be for a time. It was not a place of obvious successes but as NT Wright notes, “the journey of becoming human is often met with apparent defeat.” The key word is “apparent”. What looks like defeat to many, may very well be the “taking of the hill” in God’s eyes and his perspective is the only one that matters.

So, new beginnings on this beginning day of August. My heart swells with gratitude, joy, peace and freedom. 

The Bible records and explains a special year in the life of God’s people called the Year of Jubilee.  Every 50 years those that had sold land or lost it to debt would have it returned. Those that had lost their freedom to be enslaved by another gained back their freedom. It was a year of celebration and returning: to land, to family, to inheritance, to opportunity, to equality and to equity. It didn’t matter how these things had been taken or lost during the in-between years. Such loss could have been the result of oppression and/or extortion by others, or by the failure of the individual to make good choices; perhaps even because of squandering away through foolishness, arrogance or even defiance. None of this was taken into account except to undo it.

The Year of Jubilee was a wiping clean of the slate.

It was a restoring of right order and relationships.

It was a righting of wrongs.

It was a reclaiming of all the promises of God.

It was a chance to try again.

It was a remembering that everything belonged to God.

I was thinking about this as I sat in my car tonight, looking out at Lake Erie – allowing some time to just sit and take in; let the “snow globe” settle.  I have been thinking of late about the fact that I have recently turned 50 years of age.  I have been contemplating where I am at, what I am doing, what I am wishing I had more time for, and what I want the next 10 years of my life to look like.  I feel like I am in the prime of my years of offering.  Am I positioned to give my best and reflect the fullness of what God has done in my life to this point?  Do I want to be doing what I am doing for the next 10 years?  Do I want to not be doing what I am not doing for the next 10 years?

All this came back to mind as I watched the waves.  And then this thought of the Year of Jubilee came to mind.  Could this be my Jubilee Year?  Could this be the year to know more deeply the freedom that I have been given? Could this be the year that God wipes the slate clean, rights the wrongs, restores relationships, and positions me to try again? As I watched the waves, and considered these questions, I had a sense that I was at least on the right track; that God was indeed calling me into something this year that would put things in order and be restorative. I prayed to know the fullness of this beyond my wildest imagination; that He would do immeasurably more than I could ask for or imagine.

I prayed that on my 51st birthday I would look back over the year and be able to say that this was indeed my Jubilee Year, and that it was only the beginning of a decade that would be amazing and that I would be a walking, proclaiming witness of what God wants to do among his people and beyond.