Just for fun

Had a guest in my yard this afternoon. I was working at my computer, glanced up, and guess who was a few feet away?

He worked his way around to the back of the cabin and munched on the leftovers of my Christmas tree for a bit, sniffed at my birdfeeders and tasted a few morsels, and wandered off into the woods. Looks like he's weathering the winter just fine.

Fotos de Colombia

Here are a few pics from my lightning trip to Bogotá last week. I had a couple of meetings with our mission partners there on Thursday and Friday and was able to spend some time getting to know the city and its culture in the afternoons.

Monserrate is the obvious tourist destination in Bogotá. It's a high overlook on the east of the city. Like any such location, it's set up with all the kitschy photo ops. I gave in and paid a few dollars to have my pic taken with this tolerant llama before we boarded the tram to go up the mountain.

Said tram. We took this up, and the cable car down. I stood right at the window on the downhill side, contemplating what it would be like if the cable pulling us up the mountain should snap. Not comforting. However, everything went fine and we didn't die. Thank God.

The view of Bogotá from the top of Monserrate. It's a huge city and has swelled recently with a million and a half refugees from the crisis in Venezuela. More on that below.

My guide, Diego, and I walked around and through the marketplace atop Monserrate talking about culture, coca tea, tourism, missions, and more. I tried eating ants and we turned down food from multiple vendors (we'd just enjoyed a massive lunch). Around the back of the marketplace, we found these workers who bring supplies up for the restaurants on horses and donkeys.

The climb is truly intimidating, and I have no idea how long it takes them to get these supplies from bottom to top.

Back to downtown Bogotá. This picture doesn't seem like much at first. Look closer. All these intricate paper figurines on the street are folded from Venezuelan currency. The piles of cash at the center of the display are not outdated, they have simply lost their value in the economic crisis in Venezuela. They are literally not worth the paper they are printed on. This enterprising vendor uses the bills to fold handbags, animals, and decorations in order to try to convert cash into something with value. Colombia is reeling under the weight of so many who have fled Venezuela. Yet even in that, we heard stories of how God is working in the midst of this crisis to spread his word through evangelical Christians who have fled Venezuela and are sharing about Jesus wherever they go. It sounds almost like Acts 8:1.

Me and Simon Bolivar hanging out in the square at the heart of Bogotá. So few North Americans know any of the history of South America, and that is a tragedy. Reading just a few quotes of Bolivar's political and personal philosophy on the statues and in the National Museum, I was very impressed. Furthermore, it's a little humbling to look at the history of other countries in comparison to our own. For example, Colombia passed an edict freeing African slaves (much like Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation) a full decade before the United States.

This gets at the heart of the reason I was in Colombia last week. These are a few of the church leaders working to reach indigenous peoples in Colombia. The whiteboard is covered with names of tribes and individuals who might be key to this work. I have tremendous respect for these leaders, most of whom are themselves from various indigenous groups, for the wisdom, care, and passion they bring to this gospel work. It is a privilege to be associated with them.

These are avocados. The size of your head. Well, almost. Amazing.

Bogotá is in the throes of dynamic change, and this is one example. It's the bull ring where up until a few years ago, matadors played out the traditional business of bullfighting. These days the bullfights have been shut down, though one recent leader tried to bring them back. The effort was drowned in protests. There are lots of protests in Bogotá over various issues. On the whole, though, the Colombian people have a strong sense of what is good and important in their city and country. They work hard to make life better for themselves and for others (like the Venezuelan refugees). I was impressed and look forward to my next chance to visit.

Letting go of the season

Even though I haven't taken my Christmas tree down, we've moved on. It's mid-January now. All the markers of the post-Christmas transition have passed. Sales have ended. Those post-Christmas parties that we couldn't squeeze in before the holiday have happened. The radio stations went back to non-Christmas music on the 26th, of course. I just need to get that tree down.

It's a real tree, not artificial, so there's some urgency. Within a matter of days, it will be dry enough to start dropping needles. I'm already a little intimidated to think about what will happen when I take the decorations down. What a mess.

I'm headed back to Colombia for a quick trip, and I should probably buckle down and get rid of the tree before that.

Why is this so hard?

It's not, really. I can screw up my will to do hard things, whether it's pushing a needle through my own skin for a necessary insulin injection, finishing off a wounded animal, or having a difficult conversation with a friend. But part of me hates taking down the tree.

This reluctance balances out the irony my daughters would be quick to point out, of course: I hate putting up the Christmas tree until just a few days before Christmas. Once it's there, I want to hang on to the season longer than most.

At the risk of both anthropomorphism and excessive sentimentality, let me say: Goodbyes are hard. They are more difficult yet when there's not some shiny new thing to be looking forward to. The Colombia trip is a good thing. I have some more travel coming up in February for my daughter's wedding. It's not like life is bad.

I just know I'm going to miss sitting in the evening with the Christmas lights on and enjoying the twilight out my window as the sun sets beyond the lake.

Epiphany 2020

2020 has been glorious thus far. Contrary to most years, the weather has been nearly perfect for a Minnesota winter. Oh, sure, there have been a couple ice storms and some annoying blowing and drifting. But the temperatures have been pretty consistently above zero, and the sun is shining more days than not. Today it's an amazingly bright and glorious day outside. I'm going to go enjoy it in a bit, maybe breaking my snowshoes out for the first hike of the year.

My daughter and son-in-law just drove out. They were working like mad through Christmas, so we enjoyed the weekend together, celebrated a late Christmas, and just generally hung out and talked about stuff. I can't begin to express how precious conversations like that are to me. As I've written here before, I desperately need that conversational mirror that helps me see reality more clearly. The encouragement, correction, and delightful humor they brought this weekend was such a gift.

So much of what makes life meaningful is the web of relationships that give us a place. Love anchors us to each other and to the world. In essence, that's what today is about. Epiphany is a celebration of Jesus coming into the world as light. In 1 John you can read two unequivocal statements about the nature of God. They're not contradictory but complementary.

1. God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
2. God is love; the one who loves is born of God and knows God.

I think sometimes on Epiphany about the interrelationship between light and love. We use both of these words to describe the very best of relationships. (And for those of you who idealize the 1970's, here's a link to get the song thoroughly stuck in your head.)  Instinctively we associate light with love and vice versa. On this day when you can finally feel the days getting longer, it's appropriate to think about Jesus coming to be the tangible presence of God's love among us. It is this same Jesus who said, "I am the light of the world."

The sun is starting to drop in the sky as I write this, so I'm going to get my snowshoes strapped on. I hope your Epiphany is full of light and love!

Visions of 2020?

Happy New Year!

I have to admit, I'm a little awed to be here at the outset of 2020. At various times in the last decade, I figured I knew exactly what 2020 would bring. When I was leading a big church in the Twin Cities, this year served as a benchmark for my thinking and planning. And when I burned out in spectacular fashion, I had a very clear (but very different) picture of what 2020 would bring.

What was Shakespeare's line? "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry." Yeah, that.

In the last few weeks, I've felt drawn (and sometimes chased) toward the idea of trusting God. I don't usually pick a word for a new year, but I have a deep sense that this year is going to be all about trust. I've even got a theme verse to go with it, from Psalm 37:5:

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. (NIV)

God has indeed brought me into good pasture. This place and the community of the church I serve are such a gift to me. Being rooted here drives me deeper into my particular God-given roles. (That's the part about "do good" in the verse.) Finding a voice here continues to be a challenge and a blessing. If I was to hazard a guess about what 2020 will bring at this point, I suspect it would have a lot to do with exactly that: Finding a voice and having the confidence to sing out loud. How people take that song, and who is harmonizing with it, those things belong to God. Trust.

I suspect it will be an interesting year. And I have no idea what it will bring.

On a slightly different note, Scott Sauls made me want to jump up and down and cheer with this post. I highly recommend it if you are pondering how to observe the outset of 2020.

Whatever your visions for this new year, may God bless you and keep you and make his face shine on you.