On the Way to Wonder

“What does your baby eat?  My baby hasn’t eaten for three days.  Help!”  So said a woman who stood at my door begging in a former famine relief camp in northern Kenya during my early missionary days.  My heart broke.  Her family was caught in the circumstantial crisis of famine but they were also experiencing the resulting physical crisis of hunger. Last week we pondered an ordinary family in chapter one of the book of Ruth.  Famine impacted Bethlehem so the father, caring for his family, moved them (that is his wife and two sons) to the neighboring country Moab, modern day Jordon.  After ten years the father and two sons have died and the wife, Naomi is left with two Moabite daughter-in-laws.  Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem while Orpah returns to her father’s house.  Chapter one ends with Naomi telling her friends, “Do not call me Naomi (pleasant) but Mara (bitter) because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”  As we look over the events of last week some of us are rejoicing at the election results and some feel bitter.  Some rejoice at surviving corona but some feel bitter at their positive results.  Circumstantial crises impact the way we care for ourselves and those we love.

         Chapter 2 enter a new character in our story, Boaz, a relative of the deceased father.  Chapter 2 shifts from circumstantial crisis to physical crisis.  Naomi and Ruth are still widowed women at the mercy of “the system” and going to have to deal with their personal reality – hunger.  In Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22 we read, “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you.  I am the Lord your God.”  Gleaning “is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.”  While I have never gleaned in this way, I have visited food pantries, used WIC stamps to get food for my children, accepted coats by Salvation Army for poor children at school, and even gone to the theater with other poor families gifted by the school system.  I think we call it “making ends meet.”  How do we “stretch the budget?”

         Perhaps this week you are not “stretched” but if we are honest, most of us are seeking to keep our spiritual, our physical, our emotional, our social, even our vocational lives balanced.  As we start chapter 2, let’s take a moment and ponder areas where we are “gleaning” food for the different arenas of our life.  Care-giving is not only an emotional commitment to another, it is also a process where we become involved in the nitty-gritty physical needs of self and others.  You may need two columns for areas where you are helping and areas where you need help.  Again I remember 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”  Blessings.

“We are on the cusp…” announced CNN yesterday.  A presidential decision is soooo close and not quite yet. 

• Perhaps some of us like Elimelech in chapter one of the book of Ruth, have thought about fleeing to Canada, a neighboring country with similar language and heritage.  That is how we can best care for our loved ones.  Fleeing circumstantial danger may be a good option in political chaos, abuse, or severe temptation. 
• Returning to our roots, to something that might be more familiar as Naomi chose to do after the death of her husband and two sons in the foreign country ten years later, might promise a potential solution.  Yes, I have heard the young adult plea to come home until finances can be consolidated, a new beginning envisioned, and life kick started again.  Orpah chooses to return to her family.  Self-care is crucial.
• The last option we see in chapter one is the route Ruth chose. Freed to return home by Naomi, Ruth chooses to align herself with Naomi and Naomi’s God.  Without reading too much into this story, I suspect that Ruth’s decision was impacted not only by the circumstantial factors she could see in the fog as she stood at the point of decision but she reached inside herself to the core values she wanted to guide her life.

“We are on the cusp…” and like the people who lived in the book of Ruth, we have been impacted by circumstances beyond our control.  They did not choose famine or death of a loved one.  We do not choose when presidential elections will take place and cannot control the outcome.  We do not choose illness.  We do not choose Alzheimer’s.  We do not choose car accidents.  The circumstances surrounding our lives confront us with choices about caring for others and caring for ourselves.  It appears half our country will rejoice and half our country will grieve and the answer may not come quickly. 

         When I have had to dig deep inside myself to seek direction as I stand at the crossroads.  I search my soul asking what sort of person I want to become because of my choice.  I often remember 1 Peter 5:6-8, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  Be alert and of sober mind.  Our enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  May we choose a path that avoids violence and navigates care for our brothers and care for ourselves as we face the circumstances impacting us.  Blessings.

We seem to have come full circle by the end of chapter 1 of Ruth.  Famine initiated a coping strategy of moving.  Moving resulted in death of the father, marriage of the two sons to foreigners, the sons’ incumbent death and now a widow left with two daughter-in-laws.  This poor family has lived through tragedy after tragedy, many dark days requiring care for each other and self-care to survive.  Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem and Ruth decides to go with her.  Naomi appears to have gone “full circle” by returning but life has changed her.

         “Don’t call me Naomi (which means pleasant) she told them (the        women of Bethlehem who greeted her), ‘Call me Mara, because the          Almighty has made my life very bitter.  I went away full, but the Lord   has brought me back empty.  Why call me Naomi?  The Lord has  afflicted me, the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”  Ruth 1:20,

         So many events in our lives feel beyond our control and we do the best we can to care for others and care for ourselves.  We still wait the results of the election.  Will it be a new start on the same ole care topics?  We still wait for a vaccine but will it really ward off death and protect our loved ones?  Cain cried in Genesis, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  By being involved in what took place in his brother’s life, Cain was changed and murdered Abel.  By caring for our loved one with Alzheimer’s a person is changed as the person reflects at the death.  Care for a child differently challenged changes us.  Living next door to an immigrant and becoming friends changes us.  The “new normal” always is somehow familiar but actually different as we live into it.

         We have irony in this scene.  Naomi is meeting women from Bethlehem who recognize her.  “The whole town was stirred because of them.”  Naomi chose transparency.  She named the enemy and shared that she returned in grief, bitter, empty.  In the face of this confession, though, we have just heard Ruth’s plea to never be forced to leave Naomi for Ruth sees in Naomi a woman and a faith to model her life after.  Caring for others has a price for ourselves and others but it could be that in the midst of this feeling of exhaustion, we are not the best person to evaluate ourselves.

         Our second son at age four to five went through a year of high fevers and severe joint pain, diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.  He would cry out to me, “Mommy, am I going to die?”  I was exhausted and felt like a failure.  I may well have yelled at God, why was he making my life so difficult when I was trying to be a good servant, missionary.  It was a dark period.  I was pregnant with twins, big as a house, in a foreign country, scared.  We moved from the “bush,” leaving our translation project, closer to pediatric care in Nairobi.  Our son went into remission with the move.  But I was changed.  Care giving changes us.  Naomi renamed herself Mara.

         Today we might look at the blessings as well as the cost of care giving.  Naomi returns with Ruth who is devoted to her – a huge blessing as she starts over, but she returns “bitter.”  If you keep a journal, choose a care-giving person you are involved with and jot down the blessings you have experienced as well as the drains of the relationship.  Can you see the hand of God?  He is there and he cares!

Sacrifice thank offerings to God,

fulfill your vows to the Most High,

and call on me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you will honor me.

Psalm 50:14

Today we still stand pondering how our political and environmental (virus) future will unfold.  It feels a bit like Robert Frost in the poem about standing at the crossing of two paths in the woods and deciding which path to take.  Naomi, in the book of Ruth, an Israelite widowed and having lived through the death of her husband and both her sons, stands at a crossroad with her two Moabite daughter-in-laws.  They decide to return to Bethlehem where they have heard the Lord is blessing life. So they pack their bags and they’re ready to go.  Life in Moab will be difficult but return to Bethlehem has a cost.  I suspect Naomi now weighed the impact of the decision on the lives of her two daughter-in-laws.  She frees them to choose.

         As a young missionary family with five children, readying to return to Kenya, I read that children over age ten should be included in the discussion.  Our 8, 10, and 12 year olds were ready to go.  To our surprise we got static from our 6 year old twin boys.  They did not want to leave before having birthdays in the USA. Hmmm.  Would celebrating half birthdays with a party be ok? I asked.  We took them and their friends to Pharaoh’s Ice Cream parlor and celebrated.

         Naomi will be returning to a “new normal” but for Ruth and Orpah it would be a whole new world. Perhaps Naomi remembers the pain of adjusting when her family moved to Moab.  Perhaps Naomi worried about how three women with little status would cope.  In any case, Naomi frees the other two women from their social responsibility to care for and obey her.  Orpah cries and returns home.  Ruth however says the words we are so familiar with and which are often shared by brides at weddings, “Don’t urge me to leave you… Your people will be my people and your God my God.”  Ruth saw in the life and faith of Naomi, something worth following and trusting her life to.

         Today we possibly face a disappointing decision about president, possibly months of political wrangling, possibly changes in health benefits, possibly….  Heading to a new country where you are “the other” is no easier.  The contextual situation will be what it will be but we have control over our attitudes and where we caste our eyes and trust.  Ruth in the midst of her life has observed the faith of Naomi and casts her vote to stand with Naomi’s God.  That’s not quite the individualistic mountain top spiritual experience people share today but it points to the importance of community and faith in the midst of crisis.  We do not know what happened to Orpah or why she chose the “other road” and returned home to her family.  We can only pray that worked out well for her.  Ruth’s life, though, was forever changed by her choice “to take the road less traveled” and trust the God of Naomi.  As we wait by our radios, TVs, or cell phones today and listen for news about the issues that impact our life, may we also look to the God who says in Psalm 50:15, “call on me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”  We are not alone.  Blessings.

“When she heard…. (Ruth 1:6).”  The context of our lives so impacts our care-giving strategies.  Our family at the start of the book of Ruth, flees Bethlehem for Moab due to a famine.  In Moab, the father dies, the two sons marry women from Moab and they die.  Ten years have passed and the wife, bereft of family and responsible for two daughter-in-laws is again T-boned by the reality of her circumstances.  Naomi hears that God has blessed her homeland and remembers.

         This morning we awake to the news media debating the meaning and potential outcome of our presidential elections.  We hear and reflect what life will look like from now on?  Perhaps we reflect back on past debated elections, perhaps we pack our bags, but definitely we ponder.

         As a young adult I worked in Hollywood on a suicide crisis phone line several nights a week. One principle I remember is that people in crisis develop tunnel vision and suicide appears the only way to resolve conditions pressing on lives.  My job was to talk to them, help them hear, open thinking to forgotten resources and other potential avenues to deal with crisis.  I did not talk with Naomi but talk was going on.  I want to label this reflective process in the midst of pressing circumstances, self-care.         Facing overwhelming external circumstances, we are not only needing to deal with life but we also need to deal with self.  Exhausted care-givers who are stretched to their limits face themselves and make decisions.  Perhaps medical assistance to care for a loved one lingering or perhaps application for government aid to bridge a time of financial crisis or perhaps it is time to call the sister and have a “heart to heart.”  Naomi evaluates her plight, hears the news from Bethlehem, and decides to care for herself and her two daughter-in-laws by returning to Bethlehem.

         All coping strategies have a price and returning to Bethlehem as an older woman, widowed, with immigrants sounds scary.  Will anyone remember her?  Will she be seen as a weakling for fleeing during the famine?  She will be starting over and all her former friends will be well established – oh the social embarrassment.  In the face of swirling thoughts, Naomi makes the decision to return and the women pack their bags.

         We too balance self-care with care for others in the face of contextual stress.  We did not rise today to a clear cut victory by either political candidate with implications of either’s victory to be lived into.  How will we care for ourselves?  Perhaps we are living with the restrictions of age and illness.  Perhaps we continue balance working from home with children schooling from home.  As we live into our circumstances, I love Psalm 121 where the psalmist writes:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.”

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a question that is often generated because of the larger context in which we live.  Today Americans finish going to the polls and certainly an issue is how our chosen leaders’ policies will impact the quality of life for ourselves and those around us.  Choices will impact issues like health care, immigration, and economic agenda.  Ruth 1 opens during a time of political volatility, the time of the judges.  There was yet no king and we are told, “everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes.”  Added to the political leadership dilemma, it was a time of famine in Bethlehem.  An ordinary man impacted by these events decided to take his wife and two sons to the neighboring country of Moab.  I hear families talking today of moving to Canada or perhaps New Zealand.  Our context challenges our coping strategies for caring for those who are dependent on us or upon whom we depend.  Perhaps the question of caring is a question of how to remain safe in the circumstances surrounding myself and those I care about.

         Our man chooses flight as his coping strategy, crossing the Dead Sea to Moab, with wife and sons.  When I worked with refugees, their status was determined to some degree by the number of borders crossed, i.e. a person was labeled “refugee” if they fled across one country border but an “immigrant” if they crossed more.  “Help” is probably the bottom line and a plea for mercy even today as we debate immigration.    Moab, historically the son of Lot, the nephew of Abraham, made the territory of Moab not only near but also culturally a bit familiar.  Moab, now in modern day Jordon, and Israel were not the best of cousins but it was a solution that worked and which sets the stage for the book of Ruth.

         We can only imagine how difficult life was for this fleeing family trying to care for each other.  We see pictures of refugee camps, read the stories or perhaps hear tales from our elders.  Our man dies attempting to care for his family, leaving his wife and two sons to grow up in a foreign culture.  The sons grow and marry but we are told of no children.  The sons too die.  The wife now is confronted with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and “How?”

         Flight is a legitimate response to social, contextual “famine.”  Famine comes in many forms: political isolation, physical isolation, social isolation, or emotional isolation.  We will follow all these in the book of Ruth.  But today the question calling to us is to reflect on how we flee during times of stress.  For some it may be television stories carrying us to distant times and places.  It may be flight into drugs or eating, using substances that numb the pain of the famine we are facing.  Malls and entertainment centers with the social activity and glitter call to us to immerse ourselves in their places. Famine of some form comes to all of us because we live in a broken world as broken people, needing help and depending on our neighbor. Perhaps as we travel through the book of Ruth, keeping a small journal about the challenges facing us these days and how we might be tempted to flee, might be insightful.  I find hope in Psalm 34: 18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” As we are challenged with care-giving, let us not forget we are facing problems common to many, we are not alone, and there is a God who wants to walk with us.  Blessings.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is the question rambling around in our hearts as we deal with reality right now – elections, pandemic, racial tension, immigration plus…. You name it and we debate it.  But this question has rung out from the beginning of recorded Christian history.  God created a beautiful world that is “good” in Genesis 1 and 2 and created a couple, human beings to care for it.  But in Genesis 3 he has to confront them about their personal choices, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  And so we start passing the buck for our wrong choices.  The “other” has influenced me.  Personal failure in our first story with the need to return to the God who created us and knows what’s best for us, is shortly followed in chapter 4 with God again talking to us about our social responsibility, how we care for those we live with.

         Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel, who like all brothers have different talents.  One likes farming and one likes animals.  When Abel’s offering is more pleasing, Cain senses favoritism, anger fills his heart, his “face falls” and ooops, one day he kills his brother.  God sees and confronts Cain, “Where is your brother?”  Cain, perhaps bitterly, responds to God’s honest confrontation with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  So begins a second theme we will see running through out scripture and running through open debate even today in our modern society and our lives.  How do we make society, interpersonal relationships, care for each other in a way that promotes all of us?

         This month we will reflect on this theme as seen in the book of Ruth.  I picked this book as it is a short, touching story of real personal dynamics involving families, death, racial tension, poverty and ultimately redemption as faith grows and unfolds in a God who leads and guides.  To prepare our hearts, let’s reflect today on relationships where we are involved in care-giving, either giving or receiving.  It might help to take a piece of paper and briefly jot down the advantages and disadvantages, highs and lows.  Perhaps spend a couple minutes thinking of important people who have been care-givers in your life.  Let’s not forget as we go to the polls tomorrow our government reps whom we will elect to care for our country.  Lord have mercy.