Guest Blogger: Something We Can Do for Families in Syria

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful and meaningful Christmas Day.  This year my six-year-old’s “second favorite” Christmas song (trumping “Rudolph” is no easy feat) is “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  We are in full swing! 

Today I offer you a different kind of Christmas reflection.  The post below was originally published on the blog of my friend Jillian Ciriello (www.momingrace.wordpress.com).  Jillian is a thoughtful young woman, the mother of a lively toddler, a nurse by trade, a faithful disciple of Jesus, and a compassionate human being. 

Jillian’s post is a timely reflection on the conflict in Syria.  She helps us understand how near Syria is to Bethlehem (“less than the mileage I will log in the car while visiting family this Christmas”).  She explains the anxiety and needs of many Syrian families, expresses our own angst and uncertainty as we watch the suffering from afar, and offers a concrete way we can help.

"Underwear for Christmas"

As my heart turns to Bethlehem, I find it pulled closer to Syria this Christmas.  Amid a complex civil war, babies are killed and millions of widows and orphans flee trying to find safety. In this painful conflict I hear the words of Jeremiah 31:15:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted
because her children are no more.”

This Old Testament image of grieving mothers is too accurate for many in Syria today.  As I read about the birth of Jesus, this passage is quoted by Matthew 2:18 speaking ofHerod’s massacre of all baby boys two-years-old and under. A futile attempt to try and stop Jesus from changing the world.  I think of my two-year-old son and cannot fathom the anguish of those mothers. But evil did not triumph then, and it will not triumph now.

I hold my sona little tighter and thank God for all we have, but often feel paralyzed to do much more.  Paralyzed by images of wounded children, by my own disbelief and fear, by a struggle to comprehend what is happening and what I could possibly do that would make any difference.  It is overwhelming.  It is confusing.  It is too far away.

Far Away: But this week more than ever my heart is in Bethlehem, which is so very near to this conflict.  The distance between Bethlehem and Syria is difficult to measure because of unclear borders and shifting country lines, but the city of Damascus in southern Syria is just 129 miles, less than the mileage I will log in the car while visiting family this Christmas.  Aleppo, the site of greatest violence and tragedy at present is about 340 miles away.

Confusing: In this region violence seeks to overtake the holiest of lands where Jesus walked during his time on Earth.  We can become numb to the long complex history with many nations and groups fighting one another. But my focus in this present conflict involves the city of Aleppo where innocent civilians, women and children have been trapped for months with no way in or out surrounded by violence and death.  Evacuation efforts are in place but danger remains and the refugees have no where to go once they escape.

Overwhelming: This problem is clearly too big for me, or for any one person, group, or nation to resolve.  But I have been inspired by Nadia Alawa, a mom in New Hampshire who decided to stop waiting and start acting in 2011 to help these mothers and children in Syria and those living as refugees in neighboring Turkey.  She started an organization called NuDay Syria that built grassroots partnerships with people in Syria to get supplies and aid to the most dangerous of places.  Remarkably this is one of the few organizations still working on the ground in the war-torn nation.  They are meeting the most basic and important needs: getting diapers and milk to babies, undergarments and sanitary pads to mothers, not to mention food, clean water, tents, and warm blankets.

Now this is an idea I can wrap my head around.  A local mom, packing up supplies, shipping them oversees in giant 40 foot crates and getting them into the hands of suffering people within 6 weeks.  And I can donate via Amazon gift registry, super easy!

I wish I learned more sooner. I wish I understood more now. But at least I can Amazon up some supplies and know that a mom experiencing unfathomable pain will at least have milk for her starving child and some undergarments to wear.  One mom.  I can do that.

So this year the most important gift I am buying is underwear.  It is not gold, frankincense, or myrrh, but I do think its the gift that Jesus asks me to lay at his feet this year. It may be delivered by a wise woman instead of a wise man.  It will be given to a mother who is caring for her child, in a land that has no place for them, who would humbly welcome the shelter of a manger. It is a far away place and struggle that I am much removed from but Jesus understands it in a very real way.  He is present in this time of suffering as much today as when he lay in a stable just 300 miles away wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Where to go from here:

NuDay Syria
www.nudaysyria.net
Amazon registry

Excellent 5 Min Video Summarizing Syrian Conflict
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKb9GVU8bHE

Thank you to all my friends who posted on social media about the Syrian refugee crisis, until I finally took the time to listen and understand.

Thank you to the Boston Globe for this great article From Small Town NH, A Stream of Relief to Syria, Lisa Wangsness, 31 May 2015

The Killing of the Innocents by Herod, Detail, Leon Cagniet, 1824

The Sacred Art Pilgrim

As you all know, I choose the artwork that goes along with my blog posts very carefully and deliberately.  In fact, sometimes it takes me longer to find the art than to write the post!  It is my hope that the art I select resonates with the words you read and that your mind is filled with beauty, understanding and ideas.  Above all, I want to communicate to you in both word and image that there is something mysterious, powerful and transformative happening in our lives all the time.  I want to believe this myself, and art (like words) helps me believe it and, hopefully, communicate it. 

Last week I discovered a treasure trove of sacred art, and I thought many of you would like to explore this treasure for yourselves.  John Kohan, an international journalist by trade (over 20 years with TIME magazine) and a sacred artist by nature, has set out to gather and display – on his website – beautiful, modern, sacred art.  His collection includes religious art from all over the world in a variety of media and styles. 

You can visit John’s website here:  The Sacred Art Pilgrim.  If you click on “sacred art meditations” (at the top right of his homepage), you can select moments from the life of Christ, themes of faith, or other bible stories, and can view relevant art along with Bible readings, meditations and explanations.  Or you can click on “sacred artists” and view a variety of gorgeous art collected there, along with interesting information about the artists.

John’s own first piece of sacred art was a pencil drawing of the sower and the seed that he drew at six years old (which I would like to see, but it does not yet appear on the site!).  His lifelong journey through sacred art is ours to behold.  

Rise and Walk

John Mosiman

And the Sea Stopped Raging

Barry Moser

Psalm XXIII

Sandra Bowden

Station VII

Pat Allman-Smith

The New Jerusalem

John Kohan

St. Francis

David da Costa

Entombment of Christ

The Kelogregovi Sisters

Annunciation III

Frank Humphrey Allen

Still

The changing of the seasons means it’s time for one of Scott Eagan’s poems.  For those of you who are new to the blog, Scott is a member of the Madonna House Community in Combermere, Ontario.  He is what you might call a contemplative farmer.  Scott shares his poems with me, and I’m so pleased to share them with you.  His gentle imagery and heartfelt prose makes me feel like I am in Combermere too, living the simple spirituality of Madonna House and basking in the bounty of God’s creation.

Enjoy this season's window made with words, a glimpse into Scott’s beautiful, prayerful world.

“STILL

In the small hours of the morning
on the pillow of night’s awakening
all is still, all suspended.

The singing lake loons quieted
forest’s leaves forgetting to shed dewy tears
all the world so beautifully still.

As I poke my head outside my little tent
a gracious gift covers me
a transient thin treasure.

Just to breathe it in and let it go, breathe it in again…
- creations prayer -
can it be absorbed?

And the day begins.”

— Scott Eagan

Van Gogh, The Sower with Setting Sun, 1888.

Friends with God? Dream On.

The overwhelming response to my question about whether or not we can be friends with God was yes – emphatically yes!  Some of you were clear that you know God can be your friend because he already is!  Others added helpful distinctions:  God is a different kind of friend than our buddies or even our human soulmates. 

I agree with you.  And you all did such a nice job writing about it that I might just need to turn this blog over to the people.  You should share with me more often!

Now I promised you my own thoughts.  If the question were simply asked on a philosophical level, I might wonder.  I might surmise it was wishful thinking on the part of human beings to aspire to be “friends” with God.  But as usual, Scripture sets me straight, and that’s just the way I like it.  Vatican II refers to Scripture as “the words of God expressed in human language” (Dei Verbum 13).  I can’t think of a better way to learn about friendship with God.

The first Scripture verse that always comes to mind when I think about being God’s friend is Exodus 33:11:  “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”  The transcendent God of the Israelites was talking with Moses?  No matter how awesome Moses was (and he was), he was still a human being, a creature, an imperfect person.  But there was an intimacy between God and Moses that went down in Israelite lore as genuine friendship.

Abraham was another ancient who was called God’s friend.  He is described as such three times in the Bible:  2 Chron. 20:7, Isa. 41:8, and James 2:23.  How would you like it if this is how people described you?  What if, instead of “short lady with curly brown hair and a bunch of kids,” people said of me, “You know, Amy, the friend of God?”  Gulp!  God give me the faith of Abraham!

Jesus, of course, called his disciples his friends.  And not only his disciples.  Remember this one:  “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” (Matt. 11:19)?  This was an accusation levelled at Jesus – friend of sinners!  Never has a truer accusation been made!

Of course, we would be entirely remiss on the topic if we did not recall the remarkable words of Jesus said in farewell to his eleven faithful disciples (Judas had left the table):  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you” (Jn. 15:12-16).  No commentary needed.  These are words to pray by.

And finally, I share with you a passage that says it all.  Yes, Judas had left the table, only to be reunited with Jesus in the garden, where he would kiss Jesus and betray him unto death, even death on a cross.  How did Jesus address Judas as he approached in the garden?  He called him “friend” (Mt. 26:50).

Catherine Doherty wrote that “all men who have religion of some sort are dreamers, and dreamers of a very special kind.  They dream of unity between God and men.”

Friendship is about intimacy.  It is an intentional intimacy.  One of you aptly quoted the wisdom of St. Catherine of Siena:  “God is closer to us than water is to a fish.”  This is the stuff of dreams, indeed, but we know this dream is true.  So dream on, friends of God, dream on!  

Moses and the Lord had an unusual friendship, as depicted in this gorgeous painting by Jack Baumgartner of Moses in the cleft of rock as the glory of the Lord passed by (Ex. 33).  Moses in the Rock.  Copyright 2016 Jack Baumgartner.  Published with permission.  Click on painting to view more of Jack's work.

Your Thoughts on Friendship with God

What a wonderful week of hearing from many of you on the blog, by email, on facebook and even in person about your reflections on friendship with God.  I learned so much from and about you.  I want to thank Burr Datz for getting us started.  Burr, you’re the best. 

I hope many of you will enjoy reading what others thought about this topic by clicking on “Comments” below last week’s post “Friends with God.”  You’ll find a variety of thoughts and some really interesting connections, distinctions and personal convictions.  Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.  (Those of you who responded by email and facebook, I’ve collected your responses and posted them there anonymously.)

Next week, I'll offer a few of my own thoughts based on some Scripture passages that have deeply impacted me along the way.

In the meantime, I’m not sure I could say it better than Jim Tottenham, who posted for us this series of questions to ponder as we ask ourselves what friendship is, and how it affects our understanding of being friends with God:

“Being a friend of God is an awesome question. I think about what that personally means to me and ask myself what it means to be a friend and does this apply to being God’s friend:

Do I stay in touch on a regular basis?
Do I put my trust in him?
Would I let him take any of my treasured possessions?
Would I rely on my friend to do the same for me as I would do for him?
Would I intentionally do anything to harm him in any way?
Would I drop everything and go with him if he needed me?
Would I defend his name if he was falsely accused of something?
Would I tell others about him and what he means to me?
Would I easily introduce him to others and not worry about their reactions?
Would I always believe in him?
Would I never abandon him?
Would I give my life for him?”