A friend made these awesome magnets for Alicia Bunch (WMF Bolivia staff member) before she moved to El Alto, Bolivia.
The Mediterranean Jewish Rabbi named Jesus taught with stories, parables and crisp sayings. He evidently spoke with incredible clarity and amazing simplicity. When he preached, performed a miracle, or gave a teaching, he talked about the kingdom of God.
But it wasn’t what he said that got him into trouble. It’s what he did, and how he lived that eventually got him crucified.
What did he do? How did he live?
The Gospels say that Jesus came eating and drinking with people who had leprosy, with sinners, with prostitutes, with the religiously unclean.
Heuertz and Pohl speak clearly and poignantly about true reconciliation; diving deeply into living in tension, personal sacrifice, human dignity and what it means to befriend someone not as an evangelism opportunity but as an opportunity to know freedom in being authentic where authenticity is the last thing expected.
This short book (142 pages) is packed with so much brilliant deep reflection and revelation, that every person needs to not only read it, but soak it in and implement its words. If this is done, I promise our culture will look totally different!
If forming friendships with exploited people is important to us, we will be drawn into some complicated situations. We will probably get splashed with some of the ambiguity and uncertainty. Can we really be friends of war criminals and girls who abuse their unborn children? What does it mean—for us, for them, for mission?
Ambiguities often cause us to pull away. The circumstances are too tainted, too unclear. We worry about becoming complicit in the evil, about facilitating the wrong or being personally corrupted. It’s not just these very dramatic circumstances that challenge us—anyone who has a family member or close friend who struggles with an addiction knows about some of these questions.
We want to fix things and people. As Christians, we long to bring healing to broken circumstances and to be instruments of God’s reconciling and healing work. Americans tend to take that a step further and expect to be able to solve problems quickly, on our terms and with our tools. But that assumes a level of power and control that is sometimes unavailable and often inappropriate.
“I have needed this book for a long time. That is, I have long needed the clarification it has brought to my own thinking about ‘the destitute and impoverished other’ and about how, in company with Christ, we all can both engage and bridge the us-them gulf that separates us one from another. So list me first as a grateful recipient of its instruction, and only after that, quote me as having said that Friendship at the Margins is about as readable, instructive and credible a book on missiology and faithful service as I have ever seen or ever even hope to see.” —Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence
But how do we discover renewed meaning during Lent and rededicate ourselves to God and God’s purposes and still avoid falling into an individualistic practice of faith? How do we follow Jesus during Lent without isolating and insolating ourselves and the communities we’re a part of which are found in contexts of exclusion, vulnerability, extreme poverty, invisibility, loneliness and violence?
“David After Dentist” :: I feel funny… Is this real life? Why is this happening to me?
“On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that ‘social justice,’ the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a ‘code word’ for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.”
Well, my second book, “Friendship at the Margins” (co-authored with the brilliant Christine Pohl) showed up at the publisher’s warehouse last Wednesday. Though the official release date is April 5, I understand that pre-orders and advance copies are beginning to ship.
Publishing a book is quite an ordeal. I keep hearing people compare it to giving birth. Hmmmm… not sure that most moms would agree, I actually put my mom through almost 28 hours of painful labor before I stopped fighting and arrived. And, stretch marks… how do they factor into this metaphor?
Anyway, a lot really does go into writing a book. Having published two books now, I can attest that the process takes quite a bit out of an author. Reflecting back on the books I’ve published, a few emotions sort of surface as companions in the journey:
Hope: It all starts with an idea that needs to be flipped into a proposal. The idea may have seemed important to me, but it had to be convincing enough to make my publisher want to invest in it. This first step in the writing process introduced me to the vulnerability and possibility of rejection. Hope. The hope was that what matters to me matters to someone else, and, this hope not only starts the process but becomes very real and present once the book is actually published.
Excitement: Both times my proposals were accepted, I was sent a contract. I couldn’t believe it. A book contract. It still sounds crazy. And, I still can’t believe that I only negotiated (and failed) for an author-inspired bobble head, author-inspired action figures, author-inspired cell phone charms and air time on the Tyra Banks show.
Anxiety: Once I signed the contracts it almost felt like anxiety and the pressure of writing immediately kicked in. These feelings surprised me a bit, I thought once I had signed the contract and had the idea all ironed out, it would just flow. But there were numerous days of painful writer’s block that at times became debilitating.
Collaboration: My editors tried to guide and motivate and direct the content, forcing me to either own my voice with more confidence or try to understand how my voice would be heard by readers. For my second book I also worked with a co-author and we decided rather than each of us writing individual chapters we would blend our voices. It was amazing and created all sorts of opportunities as well as a few challenges from time to time.
Negotiation: At least with the publisher I’ve worked with, the author is given a say in what the title/subtitle might be, but the publisher has the final say. That’s also true with the cover.
Redundancy: One of the things that most surprised me about writing was how many significant milestones there were in the process. There are actually so many that at a certain point I stopped celebrating them, or it seemed like they were less significant than they really were and so I overlooked a few of them. Working with my publisher required a series of drafts: the first draft which is reviewed by a committee who makes suggestions, the revised draft that goes to the editor for more suggestions and revisions, a final draft that is then sent along to proof readers and a copy editor, and then the page proofs that need to be signed off on.
Anticipation: Once the page proofs are approved, things slowed way down and I waited—waited for months and months for the publisher to put together a marketing plan and then schedule a release date.
Vulnerability: Once the book actually dropped I started to gear up to face a whole new set of emotions surrounding the release. I hope people will buy it, I want it to have a great amazon.com sales rank number, I look for it in bookstores, I believe in the message and content (otherwise wouldn’t have written it) and want to get it out as far as possible but feel conflicted about promoting it myself, and then I reluctantly read the reviews of the book, hoping they are positive. All of these components really do create some new vulnerabilities. Also, I know that because my books are rooted in faith, many of my friends won’t read them or won’t even be interested in them—not all my friends are Christian, and many of my friends who are don’t share some of the same theological views I hold, so this means that people who care deeply for me might not really appreciate what I’ve written.
Confidence: Part of writing a book is promoting it. And, I’m up for the hustle, because I believe in the content. I’m also up for honest and thoughtful reviews of my books. It’s tough though to have them reviewed because some of what I’ve written is sort like “mile makers” on my journey—I mean, I might not think or feel or believe some of what I’ve written 10 years from now, but the thoughts that I’ve put down are an important part of my journey to where I hope to be 10 years from now. So, when someone critiques some of the same things I’d critique in my own writing, I just have to bite my bottom lip and take it because I’d give it to myself anyway.
Evaluation: My first book has been out for nearly 20 months and has gone into five printings, was nominated for a book award, is being translated into Korean and was featured at Urbana as a “book of the day”—all great indicators of success. But, I still haven’t got paid. Of course I did get an advance, but the book hasn’t sold enough copies to pay off the advance. On one hand it’s done great and on another hand, we’ll have to wait and see if it meets or surpasses the expectations of the publisher based on the amount of the advance they invested in it. And of course sales aren’t the only, way to evaluate a book’s impact, I would also hope that what I’ve written provokes a new imagination and consciousness in thoughtful people’s perception of how we can all be better witnesses for hope.
So, now I’m getting geared up for how well or poorly this second book will be received. But in the meantime I just want to hold a copy of it.
Not read it. At least not yet.
Just hold it.
And maybe I’ll get to on Monday.
Did you know that slavery still exists?
I was shocked to learn that 27 million people around the world are enslaved today. As I began to research & understand the extent of modern slavery, I knew that I had to make a movie about it. People had to know. This injustice & cruelty had to stop.
“Kavi” is my USC thesis film. It’s a 19-minute fictional film about a young boy who wants to escape from the brick kiln where he is forced to work as a modern-day salve. “Kavi” will be the first fictional film of its kind to expose the reality of ‘bonded labor,’ a form of modern slavery.
The purpose is to motivate action through awareness. To such an end, I will collaborate with anti-slavery organizations that will link viewers to actual steps they can take to help end slavery. Additionally, this short film is the springboard to a feature length version for theatrical distribution.
You can help by watching Kavi, spreading the word that slavery still exists, & putting this issue on people’s radars through Facebook, Twitter, or any other means you have to communicate. Then take action by supporting & connecting with anti-slavery organizations write your elected representatives asking them to make the end of slavery a priority, & examine the supply chains of the companies and corporations you support with your daily purchases.
Gregg Helvey
I have a friend who used to play college baseball. He would often set up a tee in his parents’ garage and hit a tennis ball off of it a hundred times or so. The repetitious practice of swinging the bat wasn’t so much about building the muscles needed to swing. It was more about building the muscle memory to solidify the perfect swing.
