Confessions

I joined up with the Unite For Human Rights Campaign, not because I am an activist, but because I am a novice (or whatever is less than a novice). I did it as an exercise in honesty, reflection, and aspiration.

Orientation

My background is vintage evangelicalism that is concerned with “spiritual” needs over physical needs. “Why feed them if they are going to die and go to hell?”

My context has been nationalism. “If it doesn’t happen in the United States, it doesn’t matter.”

My longing for a long time has been to be an advocate for the underdog. I gravitate toward those movies where the guy fights the system and wins or someone takes up a cause and creates a new awareness of a problem that has been swept under the rug for too long.

Experience

When I was a pastor, I had spontaneous opportunities to help out, whether helping someone out with a utility bill or admitting someone to rehab.

My recent experiences have shown me that there are lots of different ways to disenfranchise people. For the most part, the institutional church is disenfranchising those who ask really good questions and are not willing to settle for stock answers. All too often, they are disenfranchising the people of the inner city with their white flight to the burbs. Typically, they ignore the longing of the younger generations that experience God in different ways.

I am the legal guardian for my disabled brother. He is only 59, but due to brain aneurism surgery, epilepsy, diabetes, and possibly, strokes, he needs assistance. So, he lives in retirement center with periodic help from a caregiver. I take care of his business and try to troubleshoot things long distance, since my mother is co-guardian and lives near him. I have to “stay on” his healthcare providers tenaciously to make sure that they properly bill Medicare and Medicaid.

His doctor (whom I am about to fire) is providing minimal care to him and minimal information to me. He even refused to send me an updated list of his medications and inform me when his condition changes. I get infuriated over the mess that is healthcare in this country and the way the poor, the elderly, and those who have no advocate (but need one) are written off. Certainly, they are a disenfranchised population. I guess that I fending for the human rights of a family member right here in the U.S.

Challenge

With a cyclone in Myanmar, an earthquake in China, ethnic cleansing and a refugee crisis in Darfur, government abuses in Tibet and all over the place, it is easy to get compassion fatigue. Most of the time I have let my being overwhelmed lead to inaction. I have finally chosen a particular ministry in Africa to support because of the personal contact I have with the people involved. I hope to visit there someday.

I am so programmed to programs that I trying to free myself from a self imposed feelings of helplessness, so that I can start to notice needs and injustices for myself and be ready to respond. I have found that I also need to be free from myself and my tendency to be self consumed and focused on personal issues. It seems to me, if I can get truly free to understand how God feels about me, I will be free to pass on that same grace and love.

When we give or generate awareness or get involved in hands-on ways with those who do not have the basic things of life, like food, water, shelter, healthcare, or economic opportunity, I think we must be near the heart of God who loves spiritual refugees like me.