Sudan

A South Sudanese goga (grandmother) smokes her pipe

If you had to pack one suitcase that you could carry and run with, what would you take?

Let's say you could never again return to your home...your nest where you kept everything.  Clothes, toothbrush, pictures, medicines... Think hard, then ask yourself this question: what would I pack?

In three weeks the suitcase would be filled with clothes that needed washing, books that have been unread, pictures that reminded you of how it used to be.  All the time, your existence would be in this one suitcase, and each night you and your family would have to find somewhere safe to wash, bathe, sleep and have the closest thing to a normal life possible.  All the while, you and someone else would have to take turns sleeping, as the other kept a watchful eye on the children and the old.

In the Sudan, these evacuation packs are kept near peoples' beds.  After a period of intense "civil war" (is that an oxymoron if you've ever heard one?) that lasted for almost fifty years, many Southern Sudanese are ready to flee at a moment's notice.

Two years ago we drove in caravan to the country of Sudan with three other vehicles.  The trip was part of a promise to see Africa, and we did.  It also held a daunting task: to share the hope of Christ with a people that had forgotten how to hope.  We started from Johannesburg and traversed seven countries to make our way into middle Sudan, where a base for local Christian Pastors was being built.  Our leader, Hennie Keyter, was the most fearless man we had ever met, and for this reason, we trusted and followed him into the trip.  He had done this a few times before, and it was his most challenging of all the trips he led.

We had been briefed about the Sudan's history and had read about the war (one of the longest civil wars in World History).  As with most history, the story changes depending on who you hear it from. 

Some see the conflict arising from racial or cultural prejudice (Arabs vs. Africans).  Others see it distinctly as a Spiritual matter (Muslims vs. Christians), which in my opinion is closer to the truth.   If you trace the roots, the effect of colonization in the South(English)  and its failure to protect the interests of those left behind from the controlling North(Arab)  can be cited as the precursor to years of conflict.

In its entirety, the war (beginning in1955) killed a documented 2 million people.  Others still have died as a result: infection, famine, disease and depression ("She died of a broken heart" is spoken a lot there).

It is estimated by the U.S. Committee for Refugees that 4 million people in southern Sudan have been displaced at least once (and often repeatedly) during the war.  The civilian death toll is one of the highest of any war since World War II.  In the war, tactics from land mines to food and water poisoning were not unusual, so soldiers were not the only ones wiped out by weapons of destruction.  It appeared to be all-out genocide, with the wealthy North trying to wipe out the resisting South. 

The result of this kind of war on a people that have endured it for 50 years (the “conflict” officially ended on paper in 2005, with a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA) is that they become untrusting of life.  Scared.  Permanently scarred... and in all of our travels we had never before met a people as hardened as a whole as the Southern Sudanese. 

One of the Sudanese pastors told us a story of how as a boy, and a soldier, he was part of a battalion left to guard a trench and wait for the enemy.  The boys, many under the age of 12, were equipped with a cache of guns, but very little food and just a rationed amount of water.  In the Sudanese heat  the boys started to faint and dehydrate.  Between the three left conscious, they decided to go look for water (abandoning their post meant death) out of sheer desperation.  Before they could disperse, they heard a lone elephant advancing toward them.  An idea came into their heads: let’s shoot the elephant for food and water!!  The story concluded with the pastor telling me how he offered to accept blame from his commanding officers for shooting the animal, which he did.  He quickly took his bayonet and cut into the animal, removed the bladder and drank from its contents. He passed around the bladder to the rest of the conscious, dripped in the mouths of the unconscious, then began to fillet raw bits of meat. It revived the boys for the days ahead.   I sat, speechless.  Then he smiled.  "It was the best water I ever had," he said.  

Another mother told us of the time she woke up alone.  Her far-away stare said it all: she didn't know where her family had gone to or who had taken them.  She didn't say much after that.

Water from a bore hole that our team had dug a year before was constantly being pumped to fuel the work of building an ablutions block for the center.  Constant work of digging trenches and hauling bricks took the greatest portion of the day.  A team from KZN flew out especially to erect the buildings (brick by brick)that would stay behind us.  Mario and Roy swunng pick-axes and shovels to dig the pipelines from the block to the water.  All under a sweltering sun that left everyone tired and drained...and sunburnt.

Everyday the ladies were given a third of a bucket of water to bathe in; the men were given a half of a bucket.
Every night we went to bed with no wind and plenty of mosquitoes....and slept fully clothed with our "evacuation packs" next to us.  It was a "stay-alert" trip, where all the members had a job to do.

I am  reminded today of the life-changing trip because of this morning's newspaper headlines:

4 Million Southern Sudanese VOTE.   

Today begins a "referendum", or a special vote where the Southern Sudanese will line up at polls and cast their one vote to decide whether their region will remain united with the north or secede.  The referendum was a major item in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).  

Even on facebook, I saw my friend Debbie (our team's doctor) ask for prayer for peace for the vote.  The last time there was a vote in Sudan, all-out riots took place at the polls, and the elected  vice-president was mysteriously killed in a helicopter accident the same day.  14 other party officials were murdered.  

So far, today has been very good at the polls.  I pray it will stay that way.  In easing a generation out of the hyper-vigilance of a people that have survived a half-century war, it is imperative that things remain peaceful.  I don't believe in peace at all costs, but I do champion the free vote and the power of democracy.  

I see hope being brought by the world's eyes watching.

In its hope, I see God.  

To read about today's referendum, check out this article. It's the best I've read today.

pressure

Henry Holliday Woodcarving illustrating demonic attack on a person's thoughts

Most humans find time to inject stress into their lives.

Some stress is good and necessary, like physical exercise.   Running puts the body under physical pressure to perform in a way that usually benefits a person's heart by cleansing the blood with cardio-vascular activity.  Most stress is totally unnecessary, and self-inflicted teaspoonfuls at a time to a boiling pot that eventually boils over.

Here in Johannesburg, there is a given that people take "holiday" during the December and January heatwave where most residents run to the beach or mountains for a cooling or beautifully picturesque escape from their usually busy lives.   The Joburg culture is so close to the American treadmill that it is familiar...and not even a little threatening to Mario or me.

The truth is...God didn't intend our lives to be like this.  Stress (even good stress) has its place in our lives, but it's not meant to be the thing that makes us scream to escape.  Escaping our lives is impossible, and at the very honest pinnacle, when we're overwhelmed,  it's something we all want to do.

We've just come out of the said "holiday" season here.  We didn't go anywhere...just stayed home and held down the fort while all the other elders went away.  Still, Joburg got calm...still.  Traffic eased up.  The church office was a place for flip-flops.  We set our schedules to include relaxing spurts...and naps.  Workouts were unusually relaxed.  At some point I felt guilty for taking it so easy.

So today, as we prepared for a wedding tomorrow and the upcoming Sunday, I felt the pot boiling again inside.  It made me think of the upcoming rummage sale I was supposed to coordinate...the upcoming party and advertising deadlines.  Mario was clicking away at the computer and I could feel Freddie Mercury and David Bowie start my theme music in the kitchen.

Mario giddily tapped away at the wedding preach, and looked up at me.  "Hey," he said, "After this, we're kind of free, right?" He was thinking of the relaxed schedule giving way to three days of "no schedule".  What was he talking about??  Couldn't he hear the creaking avalanche of activity above our heads??

"Actually, I was just thinking of the Rummage sale I was supposed to coordinate," I said, getting a juice glass down from the cabinet. (Did I mention I'm also on a diet??  Holiday fat creeps up on me.)

Mario groaned, and the smile left him.  "What do you think? Does that sound like fun?"  Mario's sarcasm masks his disappointment.  I shrugged and said "Well, I'm okay, I knew it was coming."

This gave way to asking about our stuff for sale...if we wanted to invite the church to participate in bringing stuff to sell from their house (I'm also supposed to coordinate a phone bank of people getting addresses...I forgot about that) or if the church just wanted to sell off what we didn't take in the move.

I reached for unsalted, un-anything-ed almonds.  "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea." Do you want some nuts??"  Mario shook his head.  "Not now," and returned to his work.

Stress is the result of my mother's mother's mother's mother's (and so on)  hunger for that strange forbidden fruit.  I think some historians say it was quince.  Quince isn't worth it.

Eve never had  to diet.  Never had stress.  Never had to worry if she looked fat in the clothes she never had to wear...and there were no other women to tempt her husband around...anywhere.  Until she ate that fruit.

Retreating to bed now... and I pray that 2011 is void of all the unecessary stress that can tip over my apple cart.  I'm committed to making it manageable??

Who's with me??

genesis

Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel , Vatican City

Google searches are the most curious things for teachers.  They yield results that are either outrageous or predictable.  Want a great google search?  Go down the rabbit hole on the word "Genesis".

Albums, stories, books, definitions, bands, medicines and vitamins, clinics, films, energy... and none of them able to tell you with any certainty about Genesis- the reason for a beginning.

If you look at dictionary.com the definition of genesis is an origin, creation or a beginning.  WHY? Why would something begin?  Wikipedia gives several links to take us further: the first says "Book of Genesis, the first book of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible".   This is where "Genesis" is seen as the most popular hit: the one that explains the beginnings of everything we know of in this world.

I didn't become a Christian to check my brain at the door.  I've read Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) and I admire Stephen Hawking.  Here's what I believe, however.  When it comes to origins, (our genesis) this world was created.  It didn't come from a series of complicated events based on random warming and cooling patterns, nor did it result from an explosion.  I can't scientifically prove it...but I believe that it was created by a creative God.

This is where Genesis begins.  It begins with a belief that God created all things that are seen and those things we can't see.

In believing this, I separate myself from many people I love and respect (even though they're wrong) that believe in The Big Bang.  They're not fooling anyone either...they can't prove scientifically that The Big Bang happened.  They can't even defend their theory without calling it a working assumption.  In this one area, we instantly become believers, and are forced to have faith in our own belief.

In other words, no one can scientifically prove how the earth began.  Instead, Creationists and Cosmologists both agree that what we can hypothesize our origins, but at best, "proof" is only what we see now.  We are  believers in principles and theories that support our belief in origins.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."  is how the Bible begins.  It is found in the first line of the first book, called Genesis.

Because of this one line, I believe that we (created in God's image) are born to create.  We love the idea of creating, some are artists, others are writers.  Still others love creating a safe home or environment for all to come to.  Many of us find things and make them even better, or restore them to their original beauty, re-creating a thing of goodness.

It has held my thoughts today.  We are born creative.  We are born to create.  Even in Lambda Cold Dark Matter is the thought that periods of time and space "gave birth" to others.  The thought makes me giggle... it's almost an explanation of the second verse of the Bible:  "And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters."

If you continue to read the first book of the first book of the Bible, you will find that God created things and said about each one that it "was good".  And then, He rested.

This year, as we begin, remember who you are.  You were created in the image of God.  Everything He created was good...and He said so.

I go forward into this year and pray that what I create out of it each day will be good...giving light to the darkness.

Blessings this year...and create good things.  It's in you.

goodbye

Harmony Wishes Me a Merry Christmas!

As you read this, it is better to read it with theme music.  In my dreams. everything I say is punctuated by beautiful music and great views of sunsets and rainbows.  So... to fulfill a dream of mine, load this youtube song, then switch over to reading me again.  :))  Remember, to avoid the "stutters" start the tune, then pause until the red line is all the way across the screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbN0g8-zbdY

Okay, are we back?? Is the orchestra playing???

Funny, but New Year's Eve has always been a bit of a sad moment for me.  It's never been the celebration that it seems to be for all of those hat-wearing, noodle-blowing partiers at Times Square.  I've always seen it as the sad conclusion to a warm and happy holiday season.

Tonight, we say goodbye to an old year.  2010.

2010 was a spectacular year for us...full of delight, honesty, tragedy, pain, heartless cruelty, strength training, and beauty.  The most incredible dichotomies filled my life to show me passion and peace.

A Diepsloot Wedding

This year we had the first year of eldership in full.  We experienced the brilliance and struggle of being part of a new church plant.  Raising up leaders is no small task, because we're all people and we all have different personalities; different lives.  The oneness that's brought in Christ has to be fought for and claimed like a prize.




The World Cup Soccer in May and June was a stunning time of South Africa's unity...and we froze and cheered as the world came to our doorstep.  Spain took home the coveted trophy...and we loved it!!

 The building where we meet as a church was finished and we all, as a church, walked across William Nichol as if we were crossing the Jordan.

Boldo and Ganji in Ulaanbataar

We went to Mongolia, and saw Boldo and Ganji carrying on with the church that Rob and Bridget had left to them...and doing a beautiful job.  Embracing their people with a joy and soberness encouraged us to go on.

Three Generations at Harmony's First birthday

China for a brief holiday...then the USA...long enough to celebrate Harmony's first birthday.  I held her on my lap and read Dr. Seuss to her.  I held Alicia on my lap and did the same.









My parents' 50th anniversary.  I saw the couple that gave me life and nurtured me into an adult dance as a crowning moment to a perfect party: beautiful and tearful.

Vince and Rikki

We reunited with family and were able to process with them what can only be done in person.  It was an incredible blessing...and we were grateful.

I am growing up, finally standing on what is important.

I now can honestly say in truth that I trust God.  I can say this honestly, because I honestly had to in 2010.  Strangely enough, you can only trust God when you are forced to in this way, not for fluffy reasons like "I do because I love Him" (even though I do).  My life, my family, my faith is all in His hands...and I am grateful for His love that is greater than my understanding of why things are the way they are.

Trusting God...in Beijing!

I have been married to the most desirable man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing for 23 years this year...just three days ago we celebrated our anniversary.  We had tamales and steak...and champagne.

I have beautiful friends, a rich life, a heart like a moving ocean, filled with the tumults of joy and pain that only can be found in movies....

Goodbye 2010... you will be tattooed on my heart forever.

48

In two days there are 48 hours.  If adults are lucky (or blessed) we’ll sleep for at least 10 hours of that 48 hours.  Others who are more scheduled (or gifted in resting) will sleep for 18 of those 48, making it 32 liveable hours. 

I have lived 48 years today...18 of those years were programmed for me by life’s natural patterns of childhood, school, and being a child in my parents’ home.  Thankfully, most of them were happy and memorable.  I had a strong parental influence; good schools;  painful and helpful loneliness in school; popularity in high school (then the only thing that mattered) and later a great validation of professors and fellow students that I had a fine mind. 

This is when I chose to walk away from programmed life and live away from my parents, rules and school.  I usually call this period my “crash and burn”. 

Everything culminated in my behaviours exposing deep troubled waters in my soul.  Addiction.  Irresponsible sexual behaviour.  Dark, depressive thoughts.  This led to a period of my life I call my addict days.  In these days, even though I was penniless and a drug addict, I was strangely happy...and in love.  My boyfriend and I soon had a child and it was then that I woke up.  The child was a reminder that my life was “off kilter” (then I think I said “f---ed up”) and I ran home, where I was now a child with a child living in my parents’ home.

In those days of "waking up", I experienced more miracles than I ever had imagined I could.  I sought God out to know Him myself, not just live in a house where He was.  I chased Him, and He was found... and spoke to me with a voice that was validating like no other, causing my wounded places to become crowded with healing.  Soon, my low valleys were there for a purpose, and my high places were wonderfully unconquered and beckoning to me. 

Then I met Mario.  That name...that image...that intense time of destiny is indescribably delicious, but still... a little off-kilter.  I was a mess and he was a mess...and we sought healing together (thank God) unwittingly from a pastor’s wife who was a licensed counsellor.  She reflected back to us an image that was functional, but filled with unhealed places.  She invited us to church and that’s when the whole thing began.  Our church family beginnings....

We got married in the dead of winter, one day after my 25^th birthday.  He came to me with David and Joe, I came to him with Vince and soon after we had Alicia.  We moved to an idyllic mountain retreat where we both worked full time, but nestled into a truly beautiful church and we were introduced to the power of the Word of God...and the Holy Spirit.  This is the time I call our (my) Spiritual Awakening.  Prophetic words... speaking in tongues... dreams, visions, songs, worship.  Friendships that ran deeper than blood.  Memories of fishing, snow sports and hot chocolate.

As with most things, we had to leave that place for a reason.   We began again in the asphalt jungle of Sacramento- an unholy place devoid of tall trees and separate our new church family.  Still, a career and life change was at hand, and as Mario began the pinnacle of his career, I left the workplace to home-school Vince and Alicia.  This season I call “The Home-schooling Years”.   I was the new owner of a new home and a new life in a newly developed place with new parks and new schools surrounding us. 

It took awhile to find the right church, but we finally made a home at the Vineyard and soaked in more of the same “Awakening”, only to go through radical change as the church grew.  As it grew, so did we, moving into new and dangerous waters of serving God...not just knowing Him.  God spoke to us during those years, and I was always wishing I was more sure of myself – more sure of myself in marriage, in parenting, in teaching, in this Christian life.  I experienced depression for the first time in my life, decided against medication, and slowly trudged through the uncharted waters that lay before me.  Those days were a mixed blessing.  The pain and sorrow could only be balanced by the major blessings of loving and being loved... I loved my children more than my own life and really began to stress if I were doing the whole thing the right way....?   

Was it me, or do kids just take over your life?

At some point, the kids broke away and ran ahead.  We enrolled them in a small private school that seemed like the right thing at the time.  They became gifted in sports, drama, academics, friendships and I struggled to keep up.  I returned to the workplace teaching there, trying my best to remain in their lives.  It was then that we took our first trip to Africa. 

Whatever I thought I knew about life, blessings, God, knowledge, happiness....was blown out of the water.  It was there that all of my life came together and made sense.  I looked beyond my surroundings to see an entirely larger picture that we were a part of, and as I looked at Mario, I knew he saw it too.   This period I call “The decision-making days” where we began to travel internationally with the kids, and plan a future that would mean deciding to move to Africa, or deciding to stay in the States.  Our church family now circled the globe. 

To pre-emptively strike our decision, Vince moved out (a very painful time), and we grieved and continued....  Alicia grew and challenged us and our decisions to leave, then finally came with us.  We moved in 2006.  The move was miraculous and painful at the same time... and we began to know the glory and pain of living whole-heartedly as “Christian Missionaries”, even though we didn’t fit the normal connotation.  We separated from our families (our families of origin and our church family) and moved to the wild, untamed South Africa that everyone told us was so like America. 

The first year here we learned a saying in Afrikaans: “The boer mak a plan” which means “The farmer will make a plan”.  It sounds relatively harmless, doesn’t it??  Know what it means??  It means that you can’t count on anyone in the end but yourself and you’re gonna have to make it work when everything breaks down.  Ugh.  It’s true.  We took our first-world attitudes and chucked them out the door.  No one even applauded.  It’s expected here that things will go wrong and you musn’t complain, you must just make it work. 

Alicia decided to go back to the States.  We objected, but supported her decision in the end.  Vince and she seemed so remarkably SEPARATED from us... after a lifetime of us staying so closely to one another.  Here, the work of God included international travel, delightful presence of God and love, love, love of the people.  It was wonderful and painful.  The best and worst of times... everything that the Bible talks about.  Take up your cross and follow me.  Leaving house and home and country and family to answer a call to make disciples of all nations.   The Africa Years... and me here.

Here I am. 

48.

I have four grandchildren now.  My daughter has a daughter.  She just got engaged.  Vince is in love and works a dangerous job.  Two of my nephews hardly know me. 

One of my best friends here lives in a township.  I went to a wedding last week given by a family that makes less than eight hundred dollars a month.  Our church just built a Community Center in the North of Joburg.  Mario did two weddings last week and will do another next week.  In the last month, we have had electricity for 12 days.  

For most of my life I have been wide awake... but at 48 I am fully alive and barely touching my destiny.

Pain.  Growth.  Change.  Miracles.  Tears.  Laughter...

Life... abundantly.

carol

The summer sun is mercilessly seeping through the office window now, leaving me no choice but to close the curtains.  I grew up in North America and will never, never get used to December heat.  Today, as I write about my favorite holiday story: Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", a chilling, frosty and wintery tale if there ever was one,  I write in a bata, sweating. . .  Go figure.  

For those of you who have never read the story or seen one of the many adaptations, let me give you a synopsized version.  The story is one of Ebenezer Scrooge - a stern and uncomfortable miser bent on making everyone's lives miserable.  He does this everyday, but the day we meet him is Christmas Eve.  Instead of being warmed by the holiday, we see a dramatic hatred for it, and "all those who keep it".  For those close to him, mainly his nephew, Fred, and his clerk, Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's hostility is so normal that they barely flinch at his behavior.   It is easy to tell that the two of them are as kind and warm and Scrooge is apathetic and cold.   It is this night that Scrooge meets up with his old (equally miserly) ex-partner, Jacob Marley.  There is only one catch:

Marley was dead.

I love that line.  It's the first line of the book, and usually it is the first line of the movies that adapt it, since there is no improving that chilling introduction.   The story evolves with an eerie reality:  Scrooge must repent, or he will walk (as Marley has walked since death) in chains and horror and decay...no hell he has ever dreamed of will be as bad as the one in store for him.   To give the precursor for repentance Marley has ordered "Three Spirits" - all of which will visit him within three days.  (THAT'S right...if you know the story, Marley tells Scrooge he will see one Spirit each night!!) Instead, in one night, all the ghosts come- all looking different and all having one purpose- to show him Christmas. 

The night of Christmas Eve, Scrooge takes a journey of discovery  through memories, emotions, other peoples' opinions of him, and finally arrives at a perfect and unexpected repentance: fear, trembling and redemption.   Perfect story.  

So when I reached for my copy of Scrooge, my favorite movie adaptation of the book, I couldn't  find it. I called friends to see if they had borrowed it.  It was nowhere to be found.  I went to the closest warehouse of DVDs and found nothing, nothing except a new (to me) animated feature with Jim Carrey (who has personally butchered much of my favorite Seuss characters) and I wasn't too happy.  Still, it was the only one I could find and I bought it.

Last night, curling up with a few jellies and a good glass of red wine, I loaded the DVD, expecting mediocrity, or perhaps an over-the-top portrayal of Scrooge.  Instead, I was welcomed by an incredible beginning: "Marley was dead..."  

From that point on, it was an incredible delight to see the story unfold nearly word for word Dickens.  

Robert Zemeckis (most known for his breakout "Back to the Future" series) directed and co-produced the "live animation" that is the film's deepest and brightest achievement.  Set in Victorian London, animation holds a favor that live action can never have: perfect backdrops, with Victorian structures; perfect skies discolored by coal; perfect carriages pulled by sickly horses, etc.  

 The characters are a mixture of live action and animation - with Scrooge being portrayed by a rubber-faced Jim Carrey, not resembling him in the slightest.  The others are a different story.  Scrooge's nephew, Fred, is a dead ringer for Colin Firth and Robin Wright Penn's face and voice are the "Buttercup" of Belle.  

Still, I have one thing against this adaptation: it drops key lines that are meant to include the salvation message (and a salvation conclusion) that is key to purists looking for this in the story.  It's like doing Hamlet without the famous soliloquy.  The ghost of Christmas present is perfect, but the ghost's visit with Scrooge is noticeably "forgetting" to visit the homeless shelters that serve food and preach the Gospel.  His famous declaration that resounds Christ's birth must be celebrated "all 365 days of the year".  

Without an outward declaration of Christ, the film is less than perfect, but (I almost regret to say) not to be missed.  I enjoyed it deeply -- would have enjoyed it a scoche more if my Savior was better preached, as Dickens did shamelessly.

Even so, this Sunday night Portia and the boys are coming over and we're showing it on the big screen...where I hope the kids will have the "Dickens" scared out of them (it is rather graphic) -- and see the beautiful conclusion to a perfect story.

Especially looking forward to it is Ebenezer Mabhena, Portia's youngest.  He can't wait to see his namesake's redemption!  

If you're curious, check out the original "Scrooge" with Alistair Sim and Jack Warner, also available through Amazon.  

hallelujah

Today I woke up...and (without coffee)  I soon became a sobbing mess in from of my own TV.  I would do it again.  


I'm glad I did it.  


I cried in great amazement...at God and His beauty.  Mainly because I forget... how GREAT God is. 


Life lately has been a hurried year-end rush to get things put back together orderly and not miss phone calls or appointments.  The work of the Kingdom can be so busy!!  On top of that, our relationships are the most taxed... and phoning and connecting takes a back seat to working sometimes.  


I didn't even know I was getting to this place.  


It brings me back to my tears... in front of the TV.  Mario greeted me as I woke up and made me watch something before I got dressed.  "Lindsey just emailed us a link and you HAVE to see it!" he said, in his usual chipper-in-the-morning voice.   I looked over at him, following his voice to sit in front of the TV -- he had burned it onto a disc, which meant it was worth saving...and sharing.  


It was then that Mario played me the video of the people in the mall singing Handel's Messiah.  It seems like a fun thing...to sing the Messiah in the middle of a food court in a mall, doesn't it??   


In the summer of 1741 George Frideric Handel, depressed and in debt, began setting Charles Jennens' Biblical libretto to music.  Anointed or sleepless (perhaps a bit of both) Handel finished in less than a month – more specifically  In 24 days: August 22 - September 14.

The musical work known as “Messiah” gave the world a view of the Christian belief of the Messiah, or "the anointed one" as Jesus.  The whole piece is divided into three parts: The Annunciation, The Passion and The Aftermath.  The story (or in musical terms, libretto) covers the prophecies concerning the Christ, the birth, miracles, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and finally the End Times with the Christ's final victory over death and sin.

Today Christmas concerts often feature only the first section of Messiah plus the "Hallelujah" chorus,  a prophecy of Salvation from the book of Isaiah, in the Bible.  Some classical venues will feature the entire work as a Christmas concert, but mostly the Hallelujah chorus is what we all know from the Messiah.  

It is the antithesis of "Happy Holidays", proclaiming that Jesus is coming!  It is beautiful and wonderful and passionate - with a chorus of song shouting that our problems are over... and He will be the King of Kings forever...His Kingdom will have no end.  

This morning I was reminded of passion...of hope...of homage.  If you haven't seen it, look closely.  It is -like Jesus- unexpected and full of glory.  Too beautiful to behold and too truthful to ignore.  

God is GREAT...Beautiful, worthy of all praise!! Hallelujah!! 




 If you want to see it, click this link