Real Live Preacher - Essay

Olives, Wineskins, White Bread, & Jesus

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:55:12 -0800

I ate a whole can of olives the other day. Is that bad? It doesn’t seem bad. They’re fruit, right? I’ve never heard anyone refer to olives as fruit, but they're plants and plants are generally good for you. They are very salty, which I think might not be good. Salt is one of those things they used to say was good for you and they even handed out salt tablets to athletes. But then I think they said it was bad for you and everyone was trying to cut down on salt. But now I don’t hear so much about salt anymore. I think its maybe bad but not as bad as, say, eating nothing but fast-food all the time. Compared to that, eating a can of olives might even be kind of good for you.

One would think so anyway.

I can’t keep up with this stuff, to tell you the truth. When I eat I have to look over at my wife and say, “Is this bad for me?” She seems to know about these things.

Take bread for example. Years ago bread was fattening and a thing you had to watch out for. But then everyone said it was red meat you had to avoid. Red meat would clog up your arteries. So bread wasn’t that bad. But then suddenly they said meat was okay as long as you avoided bread completely. And there were those diets where you ate no bread at all or anything even remotely resembling bread.

So bread has been sometimes good and sometimes bad for us. I don’t mean white bread, of course. I think white bread became bad for us sometime back in the 70s and has remained bad ever since. I think it has stayed bad the whole time. That’s okay because Jeanene got me used to wheat bread years ago, and now white bread gives me the creeps. The way you can roll it into little balls and it turns a kind of gray if your hands weren’t all that clean. I never liked that about white bread, even when I was a kid, even before it was bad for us.

Anyway, it seems to me that a guy ought to be able to eat a can of olives and it not be all that bad for him. Not with all the white bread and fast food and sweat shops overseas and the horrible stuff they’re putting all over the internet.

But none of this really matters because when I ate that can of olives, it wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was going to be, so I probably won’t do that again anyway.

When it comes to food, I should probably just move my fork slowly toward things and watch Jeanene for cues. She could give me a nod or or a wince or a strong, stern shaking of the head. Then I would know what things are currently bad for me because, like I said, somehow she just seems to know this stuff.

I’ll tell you another thing I can’t keep straight is the Church. And I went to seminary and even graduated from it. I don’t know how you non-seminary folks are keeping up with what’s good and bad in church.

I remember when I was a kid and taking care of your Bible was a good thing. You got a Bible for a present or something and you wrote your name in it. And you never put things on top of it because that didn’t show respect. And you kept that Bible for a long time because that was YOUR Bible. You kept it for years and it would get all worn and everything, which you were sort of proud of because it showed you were reading it.

But then there were new translations coming out every month or so, and Bibles got cheap to buy and you can even get them in grocery stores now. And also some people said that if you were too devoted to one copy of the Bible it was its own kind of weird idolatry. So now people can pretty much do whatever they want to their Bibles. Toss them around. Lose them and just buy a new Bible. Whatever.

And I remember when all we sang in church were hymns, except at church camp where you could sing all these other cool songs with guitars around the campfire. And then some people started singing some of the campfire songs right in church, which seemed okay. But then others said it wasn’t good because those camp songs supposedly aren't as theological deep and sound as the old hymns. But then the people who liked the camp songs said that they are mostly made of words right out of the Bible, so you can’t exactly say they shouldn’t be sung in church. And then the hymn people grumbled, and the campfire people grumbled, and this is the truth - I don’t know what we should or shouldn’t be singing in church if anything.

To be honest, I don’t think anyone knows quite what to do in church anymore. For years church people told us that homosexuality was evil and not just a sin but a very bad sin. They had us all scared of homosexuals, that we might even become one or something if we were around them. And you just assumed that the Bible was chock-full of commandments about homosexuals and them even going to hell for being that. I mean, you just assumed that because the church people were so sure of themselves and talked about it like it was a fact.

But then some people started reading the Bible very carefully, all the parts people said were about homosexuality. And some of them said, “Oh shit! The Bible hardly says anything about homosexuality at all. And what it does say is pretty hard to understand.” So those people said we should just leave homosexuals alone and let them come to church and let their relationships be between them and God, like all relationships are.

But now, see, the ones who thought homosexuality was a really bad thing were getting tired of the changes. It seemed like you hardly heard a hymn in church anymore, and people were dressing sloppy on Sundays, and women were preaching, and you could hardly find a King James Bible anywhere. So I think they just decided to dig their heels in on this whole homosexuality thing. And it became like a religious war, and it’s gotten so bad that even the Episcopalians are fighting over it. And that’s scary because you expect the Baptists will make fools of themselves over stuff like this, but we’ve always counted on the Episcopalians to keep their wits about them and be careful and never ever allow themselves to get so divided over something that they might actually split their church in two.

I mean, the Episcopalians can be kind of stuffy and all, and who knows what the hell they’re doing with all the chants and walking up and down the aisles before church and what with the banners and all the different colors all the time. But my goodness, they’re the smartest ones of all of us, and if they can’t figure this homosexual thing out, what hope is there for the rest of us?

And all the while people who aren’t in the Church are just standing there watching it all, and they have no idea what all the fuss is about and neither do a lot of us who’ve been in the Church all of our lives. We don’t know either.

Maybe in a few years the Church will be all busted up and the only thing left will be people gathering in small groups here and there, and it might not be anything like it is now.

That’s what Jesus was saying with that stuff he said about the wineskins. How the truth about God cannot be held in old wineskins because they will just burst. And sometimes that’s what happens with the Church. It bursts like a dried-out wineskin and you have to find a new wineskin.

And it’s always hard for the church people who live in a time when the wineskins are bursting. It’s hard on that generation, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing at all but just wait and try to be as true as you can and keep your eyes open for what comes next.

rlp

Mark 2.22 - And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins."

Brother Scientist

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:12:53 -0800

There were two great, abiding mysteries in my life when I was a young boy; mysteries that I puzzled over for years but never solved. I discovered them while lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Bedtimes are convenient for adults but they may or may not align themselves with the sleep patterns of a child. I was an overactive boy who had a hard time convincing his cerebral cortex to shut down after a day of full-throttled activity.

Many nights I lay in bed, watching the shadows deepen on the walls and listening to Bible stories or music on a record player. Waiting for sleep was grueling work. Minutes slowly ticked away, and a single hour was an eternity. It was in these mysterious hours of waiting that I discovered two mysteries which I could not explain or understand.

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

a Christian Magazine
Christian Writing

rlp

Merry Christmas Everyone

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:10:05 -0800

Just a quick note. Our family chose not to exchange presents this year. Instead we're taking a trip together. We'll be back January 4th. I'm not planning on doing any serious writing while we are gone, though I might post something here or there. Christian Century has two of my essays. I put a lot of time into them, and I'm anxious to post them here. But I'm waiting for them. One of them has to go in the magazine before I can put it online. The other is waiting for final edits. If one goes online, I'll post a link to it.

One of the nice things that happens if you are the pastor of a church for a long time is you get to watch children grow up. One family came to our church in 1990 with a 10th grader, an 8th grader, and a 5th grader. I have now married all three of them, and been there for the birth of three grandchildren. This is the kind of stuff you miss with the giant, "come and try us and if you don't like it try somewhere else" churches. They miss real intimacy. But real intimacy is hard, and it hurts when people leave. Maybe most people don't want that.

Chloe has been going to our church since before she was in school. She's like another daughter to me. She's kind of quirky and interesting and I love that about her. I've written about Chloe once seriously, and mentioned her in a few other posts.

Here's what Chloe and I look like now. We rang Salvation Army bells together this year at our local Walmart. She's growing so tall. I can't believe how she has grown

She's gotten big, our little Chloe. Hard to believe. Here's what I'm hoping for Chloe and all of the kids who grow up at our church. They know what it is like to be loved. Not just by their parents, but by a community of people who know them by name and let them have their own personality and ways. Chloe prays out loud for Gypsies every Sunday. That's her thing to do, and we take it seriously. And it has led to our children sending money off to India on a regular basis.

So Merry Christmas Chloe. You and your sister Brittney are like sisters 4 and 5. We love you both.

gordon (I'm not rlp to them)

This is How You Change Things in the World

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:18:16 -0800

One small act at a time

Last night around 10pm I posted an update about various things. Among them the fact that I had found myself suddenly in need of $950 in order to go on my January trip to the Dominican Republic to help install a water purification system. I really didn't know what was going to happen. I was pretty uncomfortable asking, but I didn't have much choice, and it seemed right to me. So I asked. I thought there was a pretty good chance enough of you would want to be a part of this project that I might be able to raise the entire amount by early January. I thought, "Well, even if I get close, that would help. If I get close I can surely scrape together a few hundred dollars between now and then."

One hour after I posted, I checked the donation page, just out of curiosity. I was hoping there might be a few dollars in there. You know, it was so soon. It was really more a compulsive thing. I didn't really expect there to be anything in there.

$650 had been donated. In one hour. By the time I went to bed it was close to $800. This morning when I woke it was exactly $950. Obviously the last person donated just the right amount at that point. $950 in 9 hours. I was absolutely speechless and filled with awe. I have no idea how many people read this blog. I know several thousand come each day. I try not to think about that when I write. As I've said before, I like to think of you as roughly 50 people. But however many of you there are, some of you have come to care for me even though we have never met in person. Your generosity is a powerful affirmation of this one act of goodness that is happening in January.

Most of you don't know each other, of course, though I'm aware of a number of friendships and even a romance or two that has happened between people "talking" in the comments and chatroom. But doesn't it feel like we're in this together? It does to me. I don't know. Do you think we have something going on here? Something we might call a community of some kind? What do I know? But I do know that the total is $1310 at the time of this posting and rising. Whatever I think is happening here, some proper stewardship on my part is in order. I've spent the night thinking about this. I feel like you're telling me this project is important to you, and you'd like to be a part of it.

I talked with the folks at Edge today. Here's what you and I can do with any additional funds we raise. Our team will be staying at the headquarters of Youth With A Mission in Santo Domingo. This particular YWAM group is also involved in water projects around the world. In fact, YWAM in Santo Domingo has a team in the Sahara right now installing purifiers. The guy leading that project was in training with me in October. But they don't have clean water even in their own headquarters in Santo Domingo. They have to drink bottled water.

That's pretty stunning. They are in the Sahara installing a better water system than they have in their own headquarters.

So if we get enough money together - you and I - then when I go to the Dominican Republic in January, the team I'm on will also install a purifying system at the YWAM headquarters. That way they will have clean water and so will teams like mine that are staying there for various service projects. AND (this is the cool part) Edge can use that place as a training center to teach local groups about water purification and health issues. You need a purification system in place if you are going to teach people how to install and use them.

So if you can get the big picture - this trip could make possible local efforts in Santo Domingo to bring clean water to this part of the world. And local efforts are always the best kind of efforts. It's the whole "teaching a man to fish" thing.* The total cost of a basic system is $3500. What's nice is, there would be no extra travel expenses since we'll already be there.

I don't know if there are enough of us to put together another $3500. That doesn't really matter right now. You can't see this as me asking for more money. This is me trying to figure out a way to bless and affirm the money you are giving without me asking. If we come up short, I promise the money will be used in some way to bring fresh, clean water to people who need it. The simplest human need beyond air. Clean water. But if we get $3500 by early January, then Real Live Preacher readers will officially have sponsored our own act of goodness in the world.

Of course I will blog about the trip as it is happening. Which will be very cool since you'll be able to see it.

Let's just see what happens. This isn't something to worry about or stress over or wish about or even try to control. This is one of those things that are bigger than any of us. We simply respond as things unfold.

Thank you,

Gordon (your real live preacher)

If you want to be a part of this - donate here

* Proverb: "If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime."

Gordon's Folly

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:19:15 -0800

The big one, not those other two

Everyone makes mistakes now and again. Mostly you hope that your mistakes will be little and not cost money and not put people out or hurt them in any way. But yeah, we all make mistakes.

Doorway Deadlock

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:46:57 -0800

When we built our church facility back in 1999, our general contractor installed industrial-quality, Corbin Russwin automatic door closers on every door in the place. These things are fascinating. When you push on a door to open it, there is resistance because that action is forcing a plunger into a cylinder, compressing the air inside it. Energy from your body is being transferred in some mysterious way to the cylinder, which then holds that energy in a potential form. When you let go of the door, the plunger is forced out of the cylinder, which then closes the door by means of a system of connected rods.

Here’s another way to think about it: because the cylinder makes the door harder to open, you are forced to use additional energy to open it, but that energy is then stored and used to close the door automatically when you let go of it.

The whole thing is quite clever.

These heavy-duty, door closing units are pretty sophisticated and cost about $100 each. We have 20 doors in our building, so we have about $2000 invested in automatic door closing, which is a pity since as it turns out, only the external doors and the restroom doors have any need for this luxury. In fact, a door that always closes automatically can be a pain-in-the-ass. I got tired of trying to hold doors open with my rear end when my hands were full of boxes or books or whatever.

So a few months after we moved into our building, I arrived one morning with 20 door-holding-open machines, commonly known as stoppers. These particular stoppers are metal pegs with rubber feet. You attach them to the bottom of the door. Then you can flip the peg down with your foot when you want to prop the door open. They were $11 a piece.

As I understand it, the stoppers increase the inertia of the door to a point where the air pressure in the cylinder is not sufficient to close it. But that’s just fancy talk. They keep the doors open; that’s the important thing.

And so it was that we came to this ridiculous place: on the top of each door is a $100 machine that converts human energy into potential energy that is constantly pushing against the door, wanting to close it. At the bottom of each door is a simpler, but no less effective, $11 machine that makes the door so hard to close that the top machine is unable to do the job it was designed for and for which we paid good money for it to do.

It was four years before I saw this absurdity for what it was. It hit me like a flash of enlightenment one summer day while I was looking at one of the doors. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes and I saw things as they were. I laughed out loud at the sight of a $100 door closer straining as hard as it could to close a door held open by an $11 stopper.

“This is insane,” I said to myself. “All of this work, worry, and energy serves to create a state of affairs that we could have had if we had never installed closers or stoppers at all. We have set energy against inertia, all to maintain a kind of doorway deadlock. We could have had immobility if we had done nothing at all.”

I got up from my chair and wandered around the church, looking at all the door closers and their corresponding stoppers. One of these doors, the door to the kitchen, had been held open since the previous summer. I think I was the last one to open it, which means that energy from the breakfast taco I had that morning ended up being stored inside this cylinder for more than a year.

I reached up and touched the cylinder. For some reason I expected it to be warm. Warm from the exertion of pushing against a door for a solid year. But of course the energy inside is potential. It’s somehow real but not real until the door is released. Don’t you think that when the air whooshed out of the cylinder, it should have smelled like tacos?

It didn’t, but that would have been cool, right?

I decided to do something about this situation. I brought my drill to church along with a set of screwdriver bits. I removed 6 or 7 screws and took down the Corbin Russwin door closing machine. Then I knelt and removed the four screws holding the door stopper in place. Once liberated from these opposing forces, the kitchen door swung easily on its hinges. I can now open the door with one finger. I can move it to any position between open and closed and there it sits happily until someone moves it. I’m working with inertia now, instead of fighting against it. It’s an amazingly efficient way to do things.

The only thing more absurd than the whole situation was how excited I was about the newly liberated door. I had to tell the very next person who came down the hall.

“Hey, check this out.”

I swung the door open and shut.

“Open, shut, or anywhere in between. The door does whatever I want. Isn’t that cool?”

I don’t remember who it was, but she was understandably perplexed by my enthusiasm. Come to think of it, she might have been this woman who left the church around that time. She probably had the idea that the pastor should be working on sermons or visiting the sick or something like that instead of doing junior physics experiments with the door hardware. And I must admit, she’s probably right. Thank goodness I’m alone at the church most of the time so nobody knows what the hell I’m up to.

Anyway, this whole thing with doors got me thinking that deadlock is such a tiring way to stand still and do nothing. All of that straining and grunting. Losing a little ground, then gritting your teeth and pushing harder against whatever force is opposing you.

But we humans love to grapple. We like to lock arms and growl and push each other around. We like the feeling of one force moving another. We like power, and we like to use power. And if you look around the world, a lot of things that appear to be stationary are not moving because they are pushing hard against something that is immovable. You see this all the time. Especially at family reunions.

We set power against power and force against inertia. It’s what we like to do. We move things around our world and it makes us so happy. And there are times when force and power and moving things around is the right thing. There are times for that.

But there are also times when it is so much better to stop pushing against things and let them be. There are times when the doors should swing freely. Let them be open or closed. Just let them be. There are times to walk gently on our planet and see if it is possible that you pass on your way and leave not one stone overturned or one tender branch bent.

There are times.

Times to get out of the way and let people or plants grow as they will.

Times to let go of someone and allow them to live their life for better or for worse.

Times to sit quietly around the fire with mother myth and all the other earth children. Just listen to the story, child. Let it be.

Times to let the children eat when they are hungry and go to bed when they are sleepy. Perhaps not every night, but there are times.

There are these times. And if you can learn to see them and embrace them, you will begin to develop the soul of an artist and a saint.

rlp

Health Insurance in the U.S. - A Broken System

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:26:12 -0800

Maybe you noticed I was gone for a few days. I had some pretty important stuff going on, and I just didn’t have any energy to write. I’m going to tell you what happened to us. I could have written this without so much detail, but I think the details might be important for someone who is in the same situation.

Four days ago Jeanene and I were looking at the real possibility of our entire family being medically uninsured. No insurance of any kind for us or our children.

Jeanene quit her job, as I’ve mentioned. After 20 years of chaplaincy, 20 years of being on-call for emergencies, she was through. I could see it in her eyes. Some essential part of Jeanene was gone. Used up. And our children, particularly our middle daughter, really need a parent at home right now.

She had to stop. An opportunity for me to do some blogging work with The Christian Century and The High Calling gave us a chance to let her retire from being a chaplain. We're taking a significant pay cut, so it's risky. And there is no guarantee the blog networks I work with will continue. This was an important decision for us and we agonized over it. But sometimes in life you take a leap of faith. The faith we have is not a faith that God will rescue us physically and make sure that everything is okay. The Creator of the Universe has obviously made peace with the idea of mostly letting things unfold here according to our choices and the natural movement of the planet.

The faith we have comes with believing that it was the right thing for her to leave. The right thing for her health and our family. We felt peace about it. So we held hands and jumped.

---

About 6 years ago, when Jeanene was laid off for a period of two years, we called Blue Cross Blue Shield and had health insurance for our entire family in a matter of days. We thought we’d be able to do that again.

We were wrong.

Our middle daughter has had some emotional traumas in the last couple of years. She’s told me that I could write about our journey through all of that, but it hasn’t felt right yet so I haven’t. With a lot of help and with two serious medications, she’s doing well. She’s been doing very well since the Spring.

Unfortunately, those two drugs and something she went through in January make her untouchable. There isn’t an insurance company in America that will take her. Even if we release the insurance company from all mental health benefit obligations. Even if, like Blue Cross Blue Shield, they don’t cover any mental health benefits anyway. Even so, no one will take her. She’s tainted because of something that happened to her. It’s strictly an emotional thing. She has no physical problems.

As it turns out, no one will take me either. Why? Because I’ve been taking Wellbutrin for 2 years. It works beautifully. It’s given me back my life. If you read my pieces on depression you know how much I HATED to admit that I needed help with a drug. But I obviously did.

But that’s it for me. I was turned down by Blue Cross Blue Shield even though they don’t pay for any mental heath issues anyway. I was even turned down by the insurance provider for Texas Baptist ministers who serve small churches without benefits. I thought they would listen and give us a chance. Nope.

I’m a bad risk now. That’s the thing. Good heart. No cancer. No high blood pressure. Low cholesterol. I’ve never even had surgery. I don’t smoke. I’ve only missed two Sundays in 17 years as a pastor for illness. I’m a healthy guy, and I’m used to being treated like a healthy guy.

But I take Wellbutrin, so there must be something wrong with me, right?

Actually, it’s not quite as personal as someone looking you in the eye and saying, “You're a bad risk.” The health insurance industry is too big for that. They have computer-generated statistics that tell them people who take drugs for mental health reasons are bad risks - period. I am a clear exception to that rule, but that’s the rule.

Congress passed a law called COBRA in 1986 that requires employers to allow you to keep your insurance if you leave their company. They don't have to help you pay for it anymore, but they have to carry you - at your own expense - for at least 18 months. We went online and discovered that it was going to cost us $1600 a month to keep our insurance. And of course, that's only for 18 months. 18 Months from now we would be in the same position.

We can’t afford that, so it’s really no option for us. Please! That’s more than our house payment. Technically the hospital has fulfilled the obligation of the law, but I don’t know too many families who can afford $1600 a month for health insurance.

Texas has a state-subsidized health insurance pool for people who can’t get health insurance. Shelby and I could go into the state pool, leaving Jeanene and the other two girls to get their insurance in a more traditional way. But now COBRA really comes back to bite you. The State insurance pool won’t take you if you have any other options. Even if your only option isn’t really an option because you don’t have $1600 a month.

We were falling into a crack in the system. We can’t afford what the insurance company grudgingly offers ex-employees at an insane price. And we don’t quality for the State insurance pool because they did offer us something.

By Tuesday we had admitted defeat.

---

I’m going to tell you right now that this story has a happy ending. But it could have gone the other way. Very easily could have gone the other way.

We found a man in town who is a kind of independent health insurance broker. He knows the system, and he can figure out ways for you to get insurance. It’s not always great insurance, but he can find something. He’s really good at what he does. I wouldn’t assume that many people can find someone like him.

What if we hadn’t found out about him? Or what if we lived in some other city and couldn't find someone like this? I keep thinking about that. What if?

But we did find him. He came to our house on Wednesday and got right to work. He pulled Shelby out of our family, as far as insurance is concerned. Jeanene’s company has to cover her for 18 months because of the COBRA law. If it is just her, the cost of COBRA drops to $300 a month. In 18 months that benefit will run out and she can go into the Texas pool for the uninsured. Even this specialist admits that no one will ever cover Shelby for anything as long as she is on the medication that is making her well and keeping her from harming herself. Ironic, huh?

He knew of an insurance company - a good one - that will take someone like me, someone who takes Wellbutrin or some other drug for depression. They won’t cover me for mental health benefits - that’s over for me - but they will at least cover me for regular medical coverage. And it’s affordable.

You put the whole thing together and it comes out to about $900 a month. That figure includes my medication, which I will have to pay for myself from now on. That’s double what we were paying through Jeanene’s work, but we can swing that. It’s going to be hard but we can do it. So the story has a happy ending. Or at least a tolerable one.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because this is what people are going through in our country. Jeanene and I work hard. We’ve never been unemployed. In fact, for the last decade, we’ve had three jobs between us. We don’t smoke and we don’t take risks. We’ve never had a single major medical incident. You’d think a company would want to insure us.

No. And we came just that close to being uninsured.

For many people this is never an issue because they work for companies with insurance plans. If our church were large enough to have a plan, we could have moved from Jeanene’s plan to my church’s plan. With group insurance they have to take you if you currently have coverage.

That’s great for families with that option. But what about families that only have one person working for a company with insurance? If that person loses their job or can no longer work for any reason, you have to get individual coverage. And with individual coverage, they can turn you down for any reason they want.

You want to know something else? If you apply for insurance and get turned down two or three times, that goes on your record. Every time you get denied, other companies become even more unwilling to consider you. With two or three rejections in your history (for any reason), you can become uninsurable pretty quickly.

What I’m saying to you is, hard-working people who are physically healthy sometimes can’t get health insurance. It almost happened to us. If we hadn’t found this man and our insurance had lapsed for more than 60 days, then we would really have been in trouble. Because being uninsured is yet another big mark against you in the system.

People - it’s time we admit that the system isn’t working. We are going to have to have some kind of a national health care program. It won’t be perfect, but it will be better than what we have now. We need it, and we need it quickly.

rlp

Jonah's Seder

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:47:12 -0800

The first pastor of our church left rather suddenly in 1992, five years after the church was formed. I was 31 years old, and when the church asked if I would take his place I was happy to do so, though I did not anticipate the troubles that would come with that transition. It's always hard when a beloved pastor leaves a church. There is the grief that comes from the loss of that relationship. And everyone knows that things will likely change with a new minister. It’s a hard time for a church, a time of uncertainty.

When our first pastor left, a number of families left with him. I think we lost about a third of our church in a matter of weeks. That was not a good sign, and I knew it. It was a sign that we had been too dependent on his personality for our identity. I tried not to take the people leaving personally, but I was young and took everything personally. I wondered if their departure might be a sign that they were uncertain about me. I was worried and for good reason. New churches are fragile things. If a new church begins a downward spiral, things can fall apart rather quickly. Some new churches don’t survive because they couldn’t weather their first major crisis. I became anxious and found myself trying hard to keep the remaining families happy so they wouldn’t leave as well.

In truth we were in a difficult spot, but giving in to that kind of anxiety is always a bad move for a minister. However, I was young and doing the best that I could at the time.

All of this happened about the same time that I met rabbi Jonah and his friend Robert in a computer store. I overheard Jonah talking about some kind of Hebrew program. I was interested and asked some questions about it myself. Before I knew it the three of us were having coffee together.

Jonah and Robert were both bound to wheelchairs, Jonah because of polio and Robert because of muscular dystrophy. For the next year or so, I would go to visit them, load them into their van – which was equipped with a wheelchair lift – and drive them around town. We talked about theology, the scriptures, and the relationship between our respective faith traditions. I liked them. Jonah could be a bit overbearing at times, and he was certainly manipulative. I was aware of how he always managed to talk me into doing things for them even as I was letting him get away with it. I had never had friends in wheelchairs before, and I was rather over-anxious to please them and be nice. And, as I said before, I was young and fairly naïve about a number of things.

That Spring I thought it would be nice for our church to have a Passover Seder together. The Passover meal is strictly a Jewish observance, but many Christian churches - recognizing our obvious historical and theological dependency on Judaism - will sometimes have a Seder meal as a kind of religious education exercise.

And, I thought, who better to lead us in this sacred meal than my own rabbi friend, Jonah? When I asked him, Jonah was obviously pleased and readily agreed. At the time Jonah was not serving a congregation, so I thought this would be nice for him. And I thought our church would benefit from the cultural and spiritual exchange. I admit that I was also hoping something like this would help solidify our sense of community as we continued to adjust to the loss of our pastor and the families who left with him. It was all good in my mind. There were no downsides that I could see.

As the time for the Seder grew close, Jonah provided us with a list of supplies and detailed recipes for the various dishes involved in the ceremony. A number of women in our church took the recipes and prepared the food according to his instructions. We had about 30 people planning to attend, which was roughly half of our church at the time. The afternoon before the meal, we setup tables in a church member’s home and made ready for Jonah and Robert’s arrival.

When I got to their house, Jonah and Robert were dressed in their finest clothes and were both wearing ceremonial yarmulkes. We chatted excitedly on the way, and when we arrived everyone crowded around them both, making them feel welcome. The people of our church sort of felt like they knew Jonah because I had mentioned him and the things he had taught me about Judaism in several sermons.

The meal began and Jonah carefully explained the meaning behind all of the symbols and dishes. The Passover Seder is an allegorical meal that commemorates God leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Each dish has a specific meaning. The whole thing was fascinating for about 45 minutes. Then the food was gone and Jonah began speaking on a variety of topics, apparently whatever was coming to his mind. Things began to drag a bit. Jonah kept talking. He got lost in what he was saying and wasn’t paying attention to what was happening around him. I noticed people reaching the limits of their attention spans and disconnecting. Children were getting fussy and fidgety. People began to rest their heads in their hands and look around the room. Being ultimately responsible for what happens at church events like this, I began to be very uncomfortable about the deterioration of interest in the room.

Jonah, on the other hand, seemed to have no awareness whatsoever of the feedback their body language was giving him. He was lost in the beauty of his tradition and spoke on and on, his eyes partially closed and his voice a grinding monotone. Twenty minutes turned into thirty minutes and then to forty-five. I kept looking for an opening so that I could break in and draw this thing to a close, but there were no pauses and I couldn’t catch Jonah’s eye.

Finally, just when I thought the people in the room couldn’t stand it any longer, Jonah paused and took a deep breath. Apparently he had reached the end of his long discourse. When everyone sensed he was coming to a close, they reconnected with him. There was no ill will in the group. After all, he was rather elderly and our guest. But still, I could tell that everyone was happy this was finally coming to an end. And so was I.

Jonah looked around the room very deliberately, as if taking measure of the people. Then - and I will never forget this moment if I live to be a hundred - he carefully pressed the fingertips of his two hands together in front of him, and said, “Now, let me explain to you why it is simply not possible that Jesus could be the messiah.”

Having relaxed a bit as he seemed to be coming to a close, these words hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt a rush of panic. I looked around the room to see mouths dropping open. Children were looking curiously at their parents. “Mommy, what’s that man saying about Jesus?” One or two people looked a little angry. A man named Steve, one of our few new members, crossed his arms and looked like someone had suggested to him that our church take up communism and maybe devil worship while we were at it.

If this happened now, I would have stopped him. I would have simply stood up and said, “Jonah, thank you for coming. Time is late and we’d better bring this to a close. Blah blah blah.” No problem. But I was young and nice and anxious, and I had not imagined myself in this position. So Jonah spoke for five or six minutes and explained to us all the reasons why a central truth of Christianity simply could not be true.

I really don’t remember anything that he said. I was too busy looking at the faces of the people and wondering how many of them might not come back. It was one of the most awkward and uncomfortable things I’ve ever sat through. When Jonah finished his diatribe, the evening was over. I felt absolutely miserable. I was the new pastor of this small, still-grieving church, supposedly a gatekeeper of the content of our worship, and I had set this whole thing up. I wondered if there might be an emergency business meeting later that night which would result in me being asked to leave.

I loaded the two of them into their van in the darkness. I didn’t know what to say. I was hurt and angry that he would put me in such an awkward position. I stared straight ahead as I pulled the lever that lifted their chairs up into the van. As I pulled out of the driveway, Jonah said, “Well, I think that went pretty well, don’t you?” I said nothing. I just drove them home.

Apparently it never occurred to Jonah that it might be somewhat offensive to show up as a guest at a Christian church, be given a platform, then say such difficult and frightening things in a group of families with children. I really don't think he had any idea that what he had said was painful for the group. He was lost in the beauty of his tradition and blundered clumsily through ours without thinking much about it.

As it turned out, almost everyone thought it was rather funny. Some saw how bad I felt about the whole thing and felt badly for me. Nothing came of it. Well, Steve and his family left the church, but they were probably going to leave anyway. And honestly, I really didn't mind seeing them go. Steve was a pretty angry guy. Something or other would have eventually pissed him off anyway.

Nothing like that ever happened again with Jonah. He and Robert and I remained friends. I never said anything to him about the event. Maybe I should have, but I don't know what that conversation would have done for anyone.

And maybe it was a good thing for us to have experienced after all. Because Christianity is the dominant religious expression in our culture, Christians are usually on the other side of these situations. We are often the ones who pray at gatherings of Christians, Jews, and others and use the name of Jesus in ways that must make our friends uncomfortable. At every turn, the words and symbols of Christianity blare out of radios and shout from the street corners. Secular people and those of other faiths are often left to stand in silence while our words of faith swirl uncomfortably around them.

Having once been on the painful side of a collision between religious traditions, my suggestion is for all of us is to cultivate a healthy sense of humor and a deliberate tolerance in mixed companies. Our philosophies, theologies, and religious practices are bound to collide sometimes. It's going to happen. And sometimes when it happens, no one meant any harm. Most of us are guilty of mental lapses now and then. Our continued good will and the cultivating of cooperation between religions is far more important than any theological point you might want to make.

And if perchance someone from another tradition says something that rubs you the wrong way, remember that they have no power over you and your faith. Let the event be something that we learn from and not something that tears us apart.

rlp

Note: I first wrote about Jonah and Robert in this story. Later I wrote this. When Jonah died, I wrote about that too.

Passover Seder

Web 2.0

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:09:39 -0800

So we've all been hearing about Web 2.0. It's sort of like the word postmodern. People say it - you even say it - but the meaning behind it is slippery.

I've had an intuitive "feel" for Web 2.0 for a long time. That's what brought me to blogging, strangely enough. I wanted to write and "felt" that this was a good way to do it. I'm rather stuck between traditional media and social media. I did write a book, but it didn't sell that well, and I don't care enough to try to do anything about that. I do write for a magazine, but I send them traffic with my blog. Where do I fit in all this?

Once traditional media sources were the gatekeepers, the lords of information. And we needed these experts. We still need them, but we need them in different ways. In the new world of information, millions of people write and tag information either formally with tagging systems, or informally by linking to something they like. Good, reliable information rises to the top through a fascinating system of trust and reputation. Break that trust and you'll find your links disappearing quickly and your traffic dwindling.

We need experts to help tag information and create the links and the networks. You won't be as much of a star as a columnist or anchor-person, but you will be in the game. You probably won't be in the game if you can't let go of traditional media ideas.

Write well. Write about true things. Write responsibly and use the best information you can gather. People will read you and tag you and link to you. Good information has a way of rising to the top. Not all good information rises to the top, but that's always been the case. Not every good writer was published in the old system either. Occasionally some junk gets through, but that's always been the case as well. Trust me on this: if you are a writer, you have a better chance in this new world. More good writers will be read in our new world of networked information.

If these changes threaten or anger you, join in the conversation. But PLEASE resist the juvenile urge to find some single perceived flaw with the Internet and trumpet it loudly and with glee. e.g. the Wikipedia critics who keep telling us that bad information could get in. GASP! REALLY? I'll keep that in mind as I weigh the benefits of this massive and constantly updating information network against my 2001 Encyclopedia Britannica.

This developing information system isn't perfect. No system is. Would you like us to list the flaws inherent in newspapers and television news? Do you really want to compare the amount and quality of information that a motivated person could gather 25 years ago with the information an experienced internet veteran can gather in 20 minutes today?

Check out this video. It tells the story pretty well.

Hat tip to TGIS.

rlp

Hacked

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:25:12 -0800

sup ya'll.
this is rlp's homie g.
first star on the belt.
word.
no thoughts going on in this tank.
go see martian child.
kissies!

You an I Under the Stars Tonight

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:13:27 -0800

What if you and I could sit across the table from each other tonight, under the stars? What would you say to me? Some people say, “I’ve read a lot of your writing, you know?”

“Yeah?” I say.

There’s not much to say after that. “Thanks” doesn’t seem to work. “That’s cool” sounds arrogant, like it’s somehow cool to have read things that I wrote. Mostly I just hold still until the moment passes.

“Is that weird?” people sometimes ask. “Is it weird to suddenly find out that some stranger knows a lot of personal stuff about you, and you don’t know anything about them?”

This really does happen to me. It happened to me last week, as a matter of fact. A guy named Gary at a coffee shop. Really great guy. English accent. We ended up talking for about two hours.

“No,” I say. “It’s not weird because I don’t think about it. It’s like it’s not happening.”

That’s the truth. It’s as if someone said, “I saw you naked two weeks ago.” Yeah? Well, you’re not seeing me naked now, so I guess it doesn’t bother me too much unless we keep talking about it.

Now if I could ask you something – anything – I would say, “Do you believe in things that we might want to be true, but for which there isn’t a lot of hard evidence, maybe no hard evidence at all?”

I’d be trying to ask if you are a faith person. Any kind of faith person. Maybe you believe in Buddha, or Jesus, or God, or Allah, or any number of other ideas about an eternal being or beings. And if it turned out you were a faith person, I’d like a follow-up question.

What kind of faith do you have?

Is it frightened faith? You need the comfort of believing in the stuff your parents taught you about God, and you’re scared shitless that someone is going to talk you out of it? That’s okay. I've been there myself. I’m just trying to figure you out.

Or is yours that kind of arrogant faith that says, “Everyone else must be a complete idiot not to have faith and believe what I believe.” I hope not, because you seem so nice. Plus, I probably don't believe what you believe, so now I'm stupid and how are we going to have a decent conversation once that's established?

Is it desperate faith? Are you trying to hold onto meaning in a world in which meaning is increasingly hard to find? Yeah, I get that. I feel you.

Is it stubborn faith, like mine? Are you just ornery enough to stare down an empty universe and say, “I DEMAND that there be meaning in these skies.” And then you stare real hard and angry right into the Milky Way. Then you laugh because of how small and silly you are. You laugh at yourself, but you keep staring. You ARE going to stare down the universe.

You know, I’d just kind of like to know what kind of faith is keeping you in the game these days.

Or.

If you’re really not a faith person – at least not so much in the obvious and traditional ways – then I’d be REALLY fascinated and want to know the whole story.

Are you the sort who has always seen the default human position as NOT believing in magic or gods or any of that stuff? In your mind the evidence would have to be pretty strong to push you away from your default position of unbelief. Maybe you’ve never been able to understand why so many see it the opposite way. Like believing in God is the default, and you’d better have a damn good reason for not believing.

See I would get that. I would so get that about you. Because I seem to see just about everything in ways that are the exact opposite of most people. I know what that’s like.

Are you a kind of arrogant, angry, “only idiots believe in God” sort of person? I hope not. Because if you are, then I’m stupid, and how are we going to have a conversation now that my stupidity is out on the table for everyone to see.

Ooh, are you one of those dreamy and courageous scientist types, who has such a rigorous epistemology that you just can’t violate it for mythic reality, no matter how beautiful the myth and no matter how old it is?

Yeah, see I find that to be romantic. I was almost you. Just…almost. Sometimes I fantasize about being you.

So when the conversation dies down and we are both left looking at the stars, wouldn’t it seem like there would be no way we could remain unchanged? For one thing it would be just the two of us sitting at our little table beneath an infinite dome of starry mystery. We’d be talking about all the possibilities of what might be. It seems like there would be no way we could avoid feeling like brothers or brother and sister, right? Two humans, pitting their minds, hearts, and souls against the sky and against the unfolding drama of knowledge and mystery?

It would be sad when we had to part ways, and I would probably say, “But we can still be friends, right?"

rlp

Major Changes

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:14:15 -0800

Note: this is rather lengthy and it is an update about things that are happening in my life. If you are interested in that sort of thing, read on.

Life doesn't change in gentle curves. What usually happens is that you move along in one direction, thinking things are going smoothly, then some event occurs that throws you off-course. Sometimes these events are things we choose. Sometimes not. There is grief and stress as you adjust, but soon things smooth out and it feels like your life is "on track." again.

Jeanene and I have experienced a fair amount of significant changes in our lives over the last half decade or so. And we're about to experience another major change. This one is pretty big. It has to do with that elusive but important thing which all adults must do. We call it, "Making a living."

A brief history of how we have made our living so far:

Jeanene and I came to San Antonio in the fall of 1989, fresh out of seminary. We went to seminary together, both receiving the standard seminary degree (Master of Divinity) in 1987. We spent about 18 months doing Clinical Pastoral Education, she at one hospital and me at another. We came to San Antonio because the Baptist Healthy Care System was hiring a woman chaplain. They chose Jeanene. I, on the other hand, had no job at all. Our only daughter was 7 months old, so I was a stay-at-home daddy for a time. Jeanene worked and made the money. I stayed home, vacuumed, changed diapers, and took care of Reiley.

It was the hardest job I've ever had. Hands down, nothing else comes close. Perhaps I'll write about that someday.

After some months, I got a part-time job at this new and very unusual (and in our minds very attractive) little church. Covenant Baptist Church was what they were calling it. This was sometime in 1990. Jeanene went to work at 6am and came home at 3pm. I did my work mostly after 3:00. We did a kind of tag-team thing with Reiley for a time. Another child came in 1992, and then a third in 1996. We both worked at jobs and at children. We got by - sometimes barely.

In the early 90s, having sold a G.I. Joe collection to buy my first computer, I became something of a computer geek. In 1995 I began fooling around on the Internet, which led to designing websites. To make a long story short, I ended up with a small web design business from 1996 until 2006. During those years I made half of my living from the church and half doing web design and hosting websites.

Real Live Preacher caught us both by surprise. I began my blog on a lark, as most of us bloggers do. I did not anticipate how important writing was going to become to me. Nor could I have possibly anticipated the popularity of this blog or that it would lead to other writing opportunities. There was an awkward two or three years where I had three jobs - minister, web designer, and writer. Of the three, writing did not pay. But I was unable not to write. I can't explain it beyond that. Once I started writing, there was no question of stopping.

I somehow managed a complex and difficult transition away from web designing and into professional writing. That transition would not have been possible without the help of dear friends. I'm still working that out, as most of you know. It is VERY hard to make a living as a writer. Indeed, I haven't yet figured out how to do that. But with a few people subscribing to Real Live Preacher and with writing relationships with the Christian Century and The High Calling, I manage.

And it was looking like that was going to be our lives for some time. Jeanene a chaplain. I a pastor and writer. We were okay with that life.

But some things have happened. Now everything is going to change.

Jeanene's hospital was purchased by a for profit corporation. I have nothing bad at all to say about them, but administrative requirements began to pile up. Jeanene has been a chaplain for many years, longer than any other chaplain in the system. She is an amazing professional, competent, knowledgeable about many facets of health care, and somehow she has retained a deep compassion for people. Truly, I'm in awe of the way she continues to walk right into the lives of traumatized people without fear. Even after 20 years, she cares deeply for them. But in recent years, her life has begun to look more like the life of a corporate executive and less like the life of a minister. She has stuck it out and tried heroically to find meaning in this new world of health care, but doing so has taken a toll on her soul. I've seen the light go out of her eyes over the last few years, and that is a terribly sad thing to see.

Around the same time, I began to think about the idea that a network of branded blogs could be of value to organizations, particularly organizations that increasingly depend on Internet traffic. I spoke about this concept to a number of organizations. Christian Century and The High Calling were both interested and ended up hiring me to oversee this kind of blog network for their organization.

This new possibility allows Jeanene to do something that she needs to do. She needs to leave the hospital. She announced her resignation on November 1st. Her last day is next week.

In the meantime, yours truly is now a professional blogger. That's fine, but I've been trying to pastor, write, and setup two networks of blogs. I was doing pretty well until the whole thing with my book hit. So now I've been a pastor, a writer, a professional blogger, and a shipping clerk. Did I mention that I'm the one who gets our kids off to school and gets them home in the afternoon? Well, I do.

It's been an impossible situation, and my writing has suffered terribly. You can't do everything. I ought to know because I've tried many times. It doesn't work.

But next week everything changes. Jeanene will be at home and have primary care responsibilities for the children. Our oldest is now in college, but the other two are still in school and require all the things that school children must have. Jeanene is going to resume making her beautiful prayer beads and take some time to figure out what she will be doing with the second half of her life. She has worked hard for many years. This sabbatical time is needed, and she's going to take it slowly, I hope.

And what of me, dear readers? I will be set free to work. I don't ask much of life - I want to work and I want to write. And I want ample time to do a good job at both. With my schedule liberated (imagine a day expanding from 6 productive hours to as many as 12 if needed) I will have no problem being a pastor, running a couple of blog networks, and writing to my heart's content.

I doubt I'll get much writing done until next week. But after that, get out of my way, because rlp is going to explode!

One of the three who make it all worthwhile.

gordon

Water Purification Training - Final Day

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:21:00 -0800

I'm sorry for the delay in reporting back to you about the final day of training. I got home Monday and was faced with a number of things that had to be done by Tuesday at lunch. And then I had to fly to Dallas for a 24 hour board meeting for the High Calling, a nonprofit organization in San Antonio. I write for them and do some Internet consultation. I'm now involved in setting up a network of blogs, as I mentioned a few days ago.

So, what happened on the final day of water purification training? First of all, the centerpieces were all clean, which I thought was pretty cute. Seeing them filled with dirty water and then fresh, clean water is an image that speaks at a gut-level.

We had a worship service on Sunday morning. A pastor from Costa Rica preached with an interpreter. Edge Outreach is a Christian organization, but what I like about them is that they are dedicated to their humanitarian efforts, and not in any way involved in evangelism. As a Christian, I think we have reached a time where the Church must prove her love for people. We must help people with NO STRINGS ATTACHED. Then, if someone wants to engage us with questions about our spiritual tradition, we would of course be happy to talk. That's the kind of thing that Edge does. I am confident that an atheist or agnostic person could have joined us this weekend and not been uncomfortable. That person could have attended the worship service, out of respect, or not.

Afterwards, our final session involved seeing a kind of "super purification unit" down by the lake. This system involves both types of purification. Filtering and chlorination. There is some debate among advocates of each system. Advocates of filtration systems point out that their systems are extremely simple and easy to use. Chlorination advocates note that the very specialized and high-tech filters can't be purchased by people in 3rd world countries. The chlorination system, on the other hand, works as long as a person can get their hands on a car battery and some salt.

The truth is, different systems work in different settings. You have to be flexible and bring a system that best helps the people you are serving. The system in the suitcase by the man in blue filters the water down to a half a micron. That's a pretty serious filtering job. The smallest bacteria are about a micron in size. A micron is millionth of a meter. A human hair is about 100 microns in diameter. The man in the black shirt is holding one of the ceramic filters.

After filtration, the lake water goes through the McGuire system and comes out cleaner than any municipal water system. CLEANER. You really don't need both of them, but this was kind of a super system.

After that the conference was over and everyone went home. I spent another night with Darrell and Alice Adams and went out for fancy beers with a couple of friends of theirs. To my surprise, both of them had read Real Live Preacher before. One man - Brent - had even sent me an email some years ago. I was glad that I had answered it. In the last couple of years I haven't been able to answer them all.

Then I flew home. That's it. I'll brush up on my knowledge over Christmas and begin getting ready to go to the Dominican Republic in January. We'll be installing a massive, 8-tank system in a hospital. I will take photos and blog my way through that trip. I hope you'll tune in then.

rlp

Water Purification Training - Day Two

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:26:23 -0800

The setting for our training is certainly lovely. We're here in Louisville as Fall sets in. There are 84 of us at a retreat center learning how to setup water purifiers.

The centerpieces on the tables at dinner last night were interesting. Unappetizing, but interesting and appropriate, I guess.

Dirty water in a glass bowl

I've finished the second day of training. Yesterday we focused on education and preparation. We began this morning with a visit to a mock village where we had to interview the "local people" in preparation for a purification installation. In this particular village there was a chieftain who did not like the suggestion that the water from their lake was unclean. We had to offer a bribe to get him to agree to let us test the water. Apparently you run into that sort of thing in some places in the world.

The rest of the day was spent in training on the portable purification units. Edge Outreach uses the McGuire Purification system. It's portable, cheap, and it runs on table salt and a 12-volt battery. These items are easily obtained in almost every part of the world. Duvon McGuire, the inventor, was at the conference. He's a fascinating guy. His parents were missionaries, and as a child he caught a terrible disease from polluted water. He never forgot the experience, and as an adult he invented this very simple and affordable way of treating water. He hooked up with the Edge folks fairly soon after he came up with this idea, and they've put his purification units into action all over the world.

Duvon McGuire at the tent where I was being trained.

The system is pretty simple. The water is chlorinated to kill bacteria. The chlorine gas comes from table salt through the process of electrolysis. The idea is simple, but there is a fair amount of knowledge needed to set it all up. You have to be able to put together a system of PVC pipes and valves. The purification unit itself is pretty small; it fits into a plastic tub. Generally you bring this unit with you and buy the barrels, pipes, salt, and battery on location. Training a local person to run and maintain the equipment is the most important part of this whole thing.

Okay so tonight I saw Duvon sitting on a couch, and I asked him something I'd been wondering about? "Why go to all this trouble to create chlorine gas and infuse it into the water? Why not just drop in a few chlorine tablets, like you do in swimming pools?" Thirty minutes later I retreated from the conversation, my head reeling from the chemistry and physics in his answer. I'm so tired that I can hardly remember any of it. It comes down to this: his method is cheaper, better, cleaner, and it doesn't require anything that people can't get anywhere in the world. It's not easy to supply chlorine tablets to 3rd world countries. With the McGuire system, they just need table salt and a battery. As an interesting side note, one of the byproducts of the process is bleach, which can be used for further disinfecting needs. Very handy and nothing goes to waste.

Here's an astonishing thing: This same system that we setup today can handle a tank the size of a small house. It purifies water at a speed of about 55 gallons a minute. This simple thing can provide water for up to 10,000 people a day! The Edge Outreach people fly in and install this thing in a few days at no cost to the people. And all this is done with no tax money of any kind. Just people helping people.

Putting the pipe system together.

Installing the McGuire Purifier.

Checking chlorine levels.

And here is the machine my group assembled. It sets at an angle, but that's intentional. The angle helps the gas move through a permeable membrane of some kind. I've decided not to ask Duvon for a more detailed explanation.

They don't give out certification certificates, but I actually know how to install a McGuire Purifier in a 3rd world country, using local supplies. I'm pretty pumped about that. Tomorrow we finish up with some presentations on pumps and filtration.

Putting all the equipment and technology aside, I must say that it's pretty energizing to be around so many people who are passionate about the idea of going out into the world and helping others. And I mean helping them in a way that makes a huge impact in their lives almost immediately. Clean water is such a basic, human need. And if you don't have it, you suffer immediate and terrible consequences. As always, children in poor nations suffer the most and the worst.

These are good people. They give me hope, and just being around them is tonic for my own soul.

rlp

Water Purification Training - Day One

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:45:08 -0800

Due to weather problems, I arrived in Louisville KY at about 2:30am this morning instead of 8:45pm last night. I got about 3 hours sleep after spending 8 hours in the Chicago airport. The good news is I got to spend some serious time with my email inbox, reducing it from 180 emails down to 4.

Darrell had to be here early, so we left about 6:30 am this morning, arriving at the Edge Water Purification Training in time for him to help set up some things. It took me a good hour to finally come awake.

Of course I'm new to this whole "Let's bring fresh water to the world" movement. And like many people new to anything, I want to get right down to business. Show me these water purifiers, then send me out into the world to install them. I'll bring my own socket set.

Well, it turns out there is a little more to it. Showing up in technologically inexperienced cultures and dropping off machinery is not a good idea. We learned a lot about the cultures we will work with. We received a lot of basic nutrition information that we can pass on to the people who will have the water purifiers. The Edge folks have experience, and they have found that preparation and education are even more important than the technology. An advance team goes out (if possible) and does a lot of education about water issues and health. Sometimes the people don't even know that the water is the problem. Individuals from the area are recruited to receive special training to run the machinery. It's easy to run, but then again we are used to running all sorts of machines.

Sometimes a powerful person in a village might be tempted to take over the machine and try to sell water. In order to head-off this possibility, the leaders are told that the water must be free, but they can make ice, snowcones, and similar things which can be sold.

Only when they are ready will we actually install the water purifiers.

The first step is an evaluation of the existing water supply. Edge uses inexpensive bacterial water testers.

Fill the bag half full with water. Mix in one of the silver bags and seal it. If the water turns dark immediately, that's bad JuJu. If it turns dark overnight, that's still not good. Clean water will stay clear.

So all had to go out and test water that we found around the facility. Most people went straight to the pond.

I know what it looks like, but I got it out of the pond!

All the bags waiting overnight. We'll know how dangerous the water is tomorrow. Interestingly, the color is not that important. Some colored water might just have a little dirt in it. Dangerous water can be as clear as the water coming out of your sink. The bad little bugs are too small to be seen.

At lunch we heard from a man who is from Sierra Leon. He has been in the United States for about a decade. He went back recently, and he ran out of bottled water. He was forced to drink from a local hand-dug well that made him very sick. He will be leading a team going back to give the local people a water purification unit.

I found that almost 2 million people (95% children) will die this year from simple diarrhea. Nothing more than our children get, but they have no means to keep them hydrated, so they just die. So I'm wondering if when we install one of these, we can look at the children playing and say to ourselves, "Those children have a chance now."

To close the day we had a demonstration of the purifying units. We looked at the parts, the operation, and the assembly. The unit itself fits into a small box. You buy plastic tanks and pvc pipes in country. It's easier than shipping, and you support the local economy. The system works by creating Chlorine out of salt. More about that tomorrow.

The purifying unit simply hangs on a plastic drum with a spigot at the bottom.

Tomorrow: We go outside and have to put some of these bad boys together ourselves. Then they break them and we have to identify the problem and be able to fix them. Should be interesting!

rlp