Public Nose-Picking and Other Questionable Forms of Cultural Adaptation

When I first started driving in Honduras about eighteen years ago, I was startled (and a little disgusted) by the number of people who picked their noses while sitting in traffic. I admit that I judged them: "What kind of person digs shamelessly into his/her (yes, women too!) nose in such a public manner?!

This past Sunday I was in traffic and I glanced over to the car on my right. The driver was staring at me. You guessed it: I was scraping the crud out of my nose. Now I know what kind of person does that!

I decided to call it "cultural adaptation," obviously a euphemism in this case, but I think I might be able to justify the hypothesis with statistical analysis and photos.

The plot thickens: when I finally reached my destination, a Christian safehouse where Jasmin is living, I discovered yet another sign of cultural adaptation. I was desperate to go to the bathroom, but I suspected that the bathroom in that particular place was pathetic. Oh why did I drink that Gatorade while picking my nose? I tried to wait, but I'm almost 54 years old and couldn't. When I asked Jasmin if I could use the bathroom, I could tell from her expression that my assumption had been correct. She led me to a King Yuck bathroom with only a ragged curtain for a door. There was a guy on the floor in front of the curtain who was apparently still in the first stages of rehab. Jasmin asked him to go outside, but he just grunted.

"Oh well," I thought. "It isn't as if this is the first time I've had to submit to necessity instead of reason." Thankfully God made our brains with a certain amount of shut-down capacity, so I shut down all the parts that have to do with hygiene and modesty and just concentrated on easing my own desperation.

As a sort of bootleg missiologist, I have given lots of talks on cultural adaptation over the years. Those talks were pretty high-brow compared to this blog. Perhaps I've become overly adapted . . . or maybe I'm just one of the millions of gross individuals in the world . . . in any case, at least I haven't tried to spiritualize these "signs" -- yet.

Weep No More

"And one of the elders said to me, 'Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the cross and its seven seals.'" (Revelation 5: 5)

I wrote a short reflection in response to this verse for our ministry devotional circular and thought I'd share the translated version with you:

When you get to the market and the prices have gone up again, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and will provide for your table.

When your children are confronted with the difficulties of adolescence, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and will lead your children.

When delinquency comes knocking at the door of your home, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and will protect your family.

When the politicians remain indifferent, enclosed in their wealth and power, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and He will never abandon the poor.

When an illness threatens someone dear to you, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and will heal the sick.

When you feel imprisoned by the circumstances of life, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and will set the captives free.

When the enemy tells you that your life isn't important to anyone, "Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and He will be with you constantly. He loves you.

When it appears that there is no one willing to do the hardest work in God's Kingdom, Weep no more:
The Lion of Judah has conquered and we can worship alongside the saints and elders in the heavenlies:
"Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." (Rev. 5: 9-10)

WEEP NO MORE: THE LION OF JUDAH HAS CONQUERED!

So Many Dry Bones!

When I got home this afternoon from my usual run to pick up Sallie and Elsa, Mary had a very serious look on her face. "Mom! I have to tell you something!" I tried not to think of the possibilities. "OK," I said. "Tell me." "Carlos [a neighbor; I've changed his name, although he doesn't deserve it] was stoning Pedro [another neighbor, a man who is mentally challenged and desperately poor] today right in front of our house! Pedro was on the ground trying to protect himself from the rocks, but Carlos just kept insulting him and stoning him!"

I will add here that Carlos often mentions in conversation that he is a churchgoer; his brother is an evangelical pastor. He lives in a nice house and makes a good living.

Pedro lives with his brother and sister, also mentally challenged, in a shack. They sleep on the floor with the dogs. Pedro has an agreement with a nice lady up the road: he takes wood for her cooking fire each day, and she gives him something to eat in return. This lady, by the way, does not confess to be a Christian.

The story gets worse: Carlos persecutes Pedro because he says that Pedro is stealing wood. First of all, Carlos does not own the property where Pedro finds the wood. Secondly, I have strongly suspected for some time that Carlos himself is stealing wood from properties near ours. Thirdly, Pedro is the most humble, passive man you could imagine. He wouldn't hurt a fly. Beating him reminds me of another beating, in the Bible, of "the lamb being led to the slaughter."

Talk about dry bones! I want to give Carlos a few prophetic words ("a piece of my mind," as my mother would say). I'm sickened by his behavior and can hardly imagine him rising up to become a member of God's true army. But he wouldn't be interested in the opinions of a woman, especially a gringa. Also, I can tell that Mary wants me to do something. Surely I'm not going to allow this terrible injustice to continue! Come on, Mom!

So I have done something: I textmessaged Carlos to say that I had given permission to Pedro to gather dead wood from my property -- which I did when Pedro came around tonight to ask for food. I admit that it gave me some pleasure to do this small thing, and that part of the pleasure is in knowing that Carlos will be displeased. Still, maybe Pedro will be able to collect wood peacefully, deliver it peacefully, and eat peacefully.

I'm praying, too: "Lord, you love Carlos and Pedro, and you want them to love each other. Please breathe on those dry bones and make them live. Put Your heart of compassion in Carlos. Amen."

And those are just today's dry bones . . . What about little Sammy, left under a bed to die? And Jasmin, battling for her life in a rehab center? And Digna, who has cut my hair for 15 years, but had to run from Flor because the gangs wanted her to pay a 'war tax'?

And these are just the dry bones in my neighborhood! What about the persecution going on in Muslim countries? And human trafficking? And the drug cartels?

So many dry bones . . . I guess I'd better not retire just yet after all . . . Lord, breathe Your love and mercy and justice through Your Church, through each one of us, Your children . . .Give us Your heart . . . Amen.

Can these bones live?

A few days ago I was skyping with a missionary friend I hadn’t seen in several years. He said, “I was looking at your website, and I couldn’t help thinking that most missionaries don’t manage to survive on the mission field for twenty years, but you’ve done more than survive; you seem to have flourished. Maybe sometime you could share how you did that.”

For some reason, those words have been playing over and over in my head, perhaps because of the word ‘flourished.’ “Am I flourishing? Or am I just surviving?” I asked myself. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of myself, so I asked the Lord. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear His answer, so of course I didn’t hear anything (it’s kind of hard to hear when your hands are over your ears!). I was afraid He’d say, “Yep. That website is cheerful and that’s a great photo of you looking so joyful, but hey, let’s face it – you’re pretty washed out.” I thought of these twenty very full years on the field, looked at the fact that I’m over fifty and feel tired much of the time, allowed the Enemy to remind me (again) of all the health hazards in my DNA, and my spirit started flagging – down down down: Maybe I’d better face reality and get out of the way and let younger, stronger people carry on.

Yet I hadn’t really heard from the Lord yet. So I asked Him tonight, this time with my ears unstopped. He said, “Dry bones.”

“Oh, no! It’s worse than I thought! Dry bones?! Boo-hoo! I'm not even surviving!". Not being one to let go of a bullet until I’ve swallowed it whole, I decided to take a closer look at Ezekiel 37. God would probably amplify that thought for me, show me where I’ve gone wrong, and then maybe give me another year or two of usefulness, however menial and insignificant (yes, I was getting pretty pathetic). I turned very slowly to the famous dry bones passage, and this is what I read:

“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

The first word that caught my eye was ‘valley.’ My house is in a valley, and when the rains come, water rushes down the hill to our property. The little road next to our home turns into a small creek. Water . . . Spirit. I might be in a valley, but valleys hold water. Even if the valley is filled with dry bones, it’s still a valley, and it’s fertile and green and filled with life-giving water. I wondered if those dry bones in Ezekiel were lying around on beautiful lush grass with the sound of a waterfall nearby. I started feeling a little more hopeful.

And then the words, “Can these bones live?” shouted at me. I needed to know, too. A person wouldn’t even have bothered to ask that question: of course bones can’t live! What a ridiculous thought! A dry bone coming back to life? But God asked, and when God asks something which seems impossible, it somehow nurtures hope in our souls and spirits. Besides, now I was asking, too. “Lord, is it over? Or . . . could they . . . might they . . .will they live again?”

And of course they did! God put flesh and skin on them, and then He breathed into them, and they rose to their feet and became “an exceedingly great army.” That’s when I realized that the dry bones in the valley weren’t necessarily mine. Even though a valley is fertile and wet, it can also symbolize a place of separation from God. The mountain is the place where prophets meet with the Lord; “down in the valley” is the symbolic place of sin and sadness.

So this is what I heard the Lord saying to me, “Suzy, for twenty years you have been living and ministering in a valley, in a place where there is poverty, despair and injustice, a place where there are many dry bones. Like David in Psalm 22, you have been ‘poured out like water,’ and your strength is ‘dried up like a potsherd.’ You have wanted to see those dry bones live. You have wanted to see them with real flesh, and especially with the breath of God within them. You have tried to help My people get on their feet and join My army. In the process, you have become so spent that maybe sometimes you feel like one of them – but you are NOT a dry bone. My living water is within you. You are My prophet in the midst of the bones, My voice speaking hope and life to them. Stop listening to the voice that wants you to lie down and join the dead. Yes, you are older and you will never have the physical strength you once had, but My breath is strong within you.”

That isn’t a direct quote, by the way. I don’t necessarily hear from the Lord in that way, but I know that’s the message He has for me: “Live! Love! Let my Spirit breathe freely through your life! And keep calling to the dry bones! Tell them to rise up in the Name of Jesus!”

Isn’t that a beautiful message? I’m sharing it because I know I’m not the only one who sometimes “grows weary in welldoing,” and begins to doubt the Lord and start listening to the discouraging voice of the Enemy. We are called to go to the valley, and sometimes dwell there so that the dry bones can live – but the Lord will not allow us to join the hopelessness of the spiritually dead. He sends rivers of Living Water and His own breath of the Holy Spirit to keep His life flowing into and through our lives.

“Can these bones live?” Hallelujah – not just live – They can flourish!