Christopher Hitchens on Kosovo

As a Christian and a pacifist, I suppose I'm an unlikely candidate to be reading Christopher Hitchens, but I faithfully  follow his column at Slate.com. I usually find his writing entertaining, often find it informative, and on rare occasions I actually find myself agreeing with it. In his recent piece on Kosova, he stated the case for independence much more eloquently than I have seen it anywhere else.

Congratulations and a challenge for Kosova

I called a bunch of my Kosovar friends today. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Hey, this is Marku calling from America."
My Kosovar friend: "Hey Mark! How are you?"
Me: "Well, I'm ok but to tell the truth I'm pretty angry at you!"
My Kosovar friend: "Really? Why?"
My: "I waited 10 years with you guys for this moment, and you couldn't even wait another 4 months till I come back so we could celebrate it together!"
(This followed by racous laughter from my Kosovar friend.)

This really is a bittersweet moment for me. I wish I could have been there to share the joy with the people I love. I want to take this moment to publicly congratulate my Kosovar friends -- and also to issue them a challenge.

It is often said, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." (a slight misquote of George Santayana). From my experience in the Balkans, it sometimes seems that it's the remembering that dooms people to repeat history. History is often rehearsed in such a way as to stoke the fires of hatred and to insure that the current generation of victims will become the future generation of perpetrators.

(Not that the Balkans has a lock on this kind of thing. I often wonder if there isn't a similar sentiment behind the "9-11 - We won't forget" bumperstickers.)

Nevertheless, I think that remembering is important. In the Bible, we read how the people of Israel suffered for 400 years as slaves in Egypt. When God set them free through Moses (Hazreti Musa), He commanded them to remember their slavery so that they who had once been oppressed would never become oppressors.

I wish to say to my Kosovar brothers, "Please do not allow yourselves to become what you hate. You have an opportunity to create a state where everyone -- Serbs, Gypsies, Turks, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox can experience justice, peace, and freedom. You know what it is like to be refugees; please don't force other people to flee their homes. You know what it is like to be treated with contempt; please treat the minorities among you with respect. You know what it is like to lose loved ones; please don't make more widows and orphans."

I hope I don't sound condescending. I know that we Americans have our own ugly history and our own challenges in the present. I will keep praying for God's blessings to flow through Kosova like the rivers flow down from the Albanian Alps to water the Plain of Dukajgin. I hope to be back among you this summer.

One of the things that I love about Albanian culture is the blessings that they use for specific occasions.  The Albanian language actually has a distinct verb mood that is used only for blesses and curses. (The closest English equivalent would be to the use of the word, "May" as you'll see in the examples below.)  Here are some of the more common ones.

- “May it be good for you!” - If you see someone eating, or if you serve someone food (especially if the guest thanks you or blesses you for the meal.)

- "May the Lord give you a harvest." - If someone gives you something to eat or drink.  (This is one of my favorites.)

- “May your hands rejoice!” – If someone makes something nice with his/her hands. This would include food but could include anything else made with the hands.
- “May your mouth rejoice!” – If someone says something wise or sings beautifully.
- “May your feet rejoice that they brought you to visit me!” –

- “May the Lord give you a harvest!” – If someone shares food with you.

- “May the Lord leave you healthy!” – to someone who has lost a loved one
- “May you be healthy!” – the reply

- “I worship to your honor!” – This is the literal meaning of the Albanian version of “Thank you.”
- “May you be with honor!” – You’re welcome. (In response to “Thank you.”)

- “May your honor increase!” – Another way of saying thank you, most commonly used when someone offers you a cigarette. (One shopkeeper used to thank me for my business with a slight variation: “May your salary increase!”)

- “May you wear it with health!” or simply “With health.” – When someone has a new item of clothing or a new haircut.
- “May you have health!” - the response

- “May you be inherited!” – When someone engages or marries a son or daughter.

- “May your work go well.” – Used most often to get the attention of a busy shopkeeper.”

- “Marshallah!” – Used when admiring someone or something – a baby, a pretty girl, or even a nice fat cow.  Many Balkan people believe strongly in the evil eye i.e., that they can unwittingly curse someone by admiring them. This blessing is used as an antitode.

- "May you live to be 100!" - To wish someone happy birthday.

Organic fertilizer

I came across the following quote while listening to a Soularize podcast.

"There is good and bad soil. And the Bible’s not silent about where you’ll find each, and one of our phrases that you’ll hear a lot is, 'Bad people make good soil; there’s a lot of fertilizer in their life.'"
Neil Cole

"Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!"

I used to hear other kids saying this quite a bit during my childhood days. I don't think my friends and I really comprehended the gruesomeness of it. This saying came back to me today when I stopped to reflect on a phrase in my study Bible: "self maledictory oath."

Many covenants in Bible times were sealed with a self maledictory oath, and sometimes a bloody ceremony to act it out. Circumcision was one example. According to the NIV Study Bible, circumcision meant: "If I am not loyal in faith and obedience to the Lord, may the sword of the Lord cut off me and my offspring as I have cut off my foreskin." To paraphrase Genesis 17:14, "Either cut it off or God will cut you off!"

Sometimes animals were slaughtered and torn apart as in the case of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. The shocking thing about this story is that it was God not Abraham who took upon Himself the curses that would come as a consequence of violating the covenant. Of course God did just that in an ultimate sense on the cross.

I may be getting in over my head here, but I wonder if there might not have been an allusion to a self-maledictory oath in Jesus words at the Last Supper: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you." (Luke 22:20)

Eating weird stuff

A while back I was speaking in Ohio and someone asked me what was the weirdest thing I had ever eaten on the foreign field. I replied that I'm from south Louisiana so I ate all the weird stuff before I ever left the US! Here are some of the stranger things I've eaten.

• scrambled eggs and squirrel brains: The ultimate redneck dish.
  
• live grasshoppers: This is kind of a performance art thing for me. It's one of those things (like preaching) that you can do if you were born to perform but you have no talent. It started when I was doing youth ministry. I had this theory that you have to be weirder than the students if you want them to respect you. Now I've got quite a reputation and whenever I'm outdoors with friends, they want me to do eat a grasshopper for them, and I always oblige.
• rattlesnake: I've always wanted to try this, and I finally got my chance a couple of months ago. There's a steakhouse near the entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that sells a fried rattlesnake appetizer. It was kind of tough and stringy to be honest, but I guess no one eats rattlesnake because it's tender and tasty.
• alligator:  Not really a big deal in south Louisiana.

There was a time when I would have included sashimi on this list, but that's not strange anymore. With our organization we live our life in cycles of four years abroad and one year in the States, so I get this kind of strobe-light look at American culture. I had a Chinese roommate in college who taught me to use chopsticks. Not so long ago that was a nifty skill that was mildly impressive to my friends. (Remember I'm talking about the Deep South here, not California!) But nowadays every $6.99 Chinese buffet in Mississippi has a sushi bar, so eating with chopsticks no longer marks me as a man of the World.

The only thing I've ever eaten in the Balkans that I really had to choke down was some chicken-skin soup that a Roma (Gypsy) family served in Macedonia.

This just in! I've got another one to add to the list. I got invited to a wild game supper at a Baptist church today, and they had (among other things) coon on the menu!

I pick up hitchhikers.  I have a couple of reasons.  One is that I have this fear that one day I'll stand in front of Jesus, and he'll say, "Remember that hitchhiker you blew by that day when it was raining and 40 degrees*?  Well that was me.  Get over there on the left with the goats!"  The other reason is this fascination I have with stories.  Hitchhikers often have fantastic stories.   I mean "fantastic" in both senses of the word.

I've encountered some hitchhikers who were truly delightful traveling companions.  Quite a few seem to be sincere brothers in Christ.  (It's not always easy to tell though.  Apparently, they get preached at a lot, so some of them have a strategy of avoiding the sermon by striking first with some stock Christian phrases.)

Quite a few are drug addicts or alcoholics of course; and a significant percentage are certifiably loony.  Those are the ones with the best stories.  I picked up one like that in Meridian last Saturday.   He claimed,to have brought about, pretty much single-handedly, the downfall of the Soviet Union.  He once found that he was on a KGB hit list, so he obtained his own list of their top 100 assasins and disposed of every single one of them within a week's time.  Jason Bourne would be envious!

Every time we passed a church he told me that it was built on property stolen from him.  He said that he had a degree in theology.  He went to Bible school for a week he said, and all they talked about was how to steal money from people.  So after a week he got Ronald Reagan to call the school and persuade them to let him go ahead and take the final exam for his degree, which he passed with flying colors.  Whenever he talked about preachers he strung together every expletive I'd ever heard.  (And I used to work the oil fields, so I've probably heard most of them.)

At some point in the conversation, he mentioned Angola, pausing to explain to me that it was the Louisiana State penitentiary and that it had a really rough reputation.  

I interrupted him. "I know.  I've been there.  I was on death row,"  I said being deliberately vague.

For the first time on the journey he interrupted his monologue and turned to look at me.  "You were on death row in Angola?" he asked.  There was undisguised respect in in his voice.

I thought it was time to drop the bomb.  "Yes, but not as a prisoner.  As a preacher."   I waited for a reaction.  

There was none, other than maybe disappointment.  "Oh.  You're a preacher."  Then he picked up where he had left off.

Here are some of the other highlights:

• Hillary Clinton wanted to have sex with him to get Bill back.  He nobly refused.
  
• He had killed more than 6,000 people, but they were all murderers and deserved it.
• The FBI had paid him 39 million dollars for his work, but he couldn't collect his money till he retired, which was one month away.
• He didn't claim to be a Christian, but from his study of scripture, he had concluded that Jehovah is Jesus' Father, and the Holy Spirit is Jehovah's parents.

I didn't say much, other than an occasional "Hmmm,"  or, "Is that right?"  After a couple of hours like this, he finally said, "You think I'm totally crazy don't you?"

I smiled and said, "I haven't decided whether you're crazy or just a good storyteller."   He briefly protested that it was all true then resumed the monologue.

I offered him some food, but he said he had some already.  He asked if I could pay for him to get a motel room.  I declined.  I figured I was safe; by this point I was pretty sure he wasn't Jesus.

*A note to my European friends:  We're talking about fahrenheit here. 

Ray Janway
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

I meet a lot of fascinating people on my travels -- preachers and atheists, hunters and vegetarians, hitchhikers and cab drivers, war-lords and peace activists, Albanians and Serbs, Christians and Muslims... I'm enchanted by the stories of these people, and one of the things I hope to do with this blog is to share some of those stories.

In that spirit, I'll start with a story told to me by this man, Ray Janway. Ray and his wife Betty recently opened their home to me for a few days while I was on business in North Louisiana. The hospitality they showed to me was truly amazing! Anyway, here's the story:

When Ray and his older brother Cecil were young children in southern Arkansas, their mother was a churchgoer, but not their father. He worked hard all week and fished all day Saturday and Sunday. He said that he didn't want to go to church because he figured that he couldn't be held responsible for what he didn't know. He would always take his boys fishing with him on Saturdays, but on Sundays he made them go to church with their mother.

One Saturday Ray and Cecil and their mom and dad were out in the boat fishing. They had fished for hours without so much as a nibble. Ray's father jokingly taunted the fish: "That's ok, don't bite. I'll just come back and catch you tomorrow. You won't get away!"

"If we caught a mess of fish, would you come with us to church tomorrow?" Ray's mom asked.

"Yes, if we caught a mess of fish, I'd come to church," he answered.

No sooner than were the words out of Mr. Janway's mouth than Mrs. Janway's rod bent double.  She shouted,  "Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus!", as she landed a large blue channel catfish. After that the fish were practically jumping into the boat. They caught one after the other and many different kinds -- catfish, bluegill, bass, crappie.

The next day Mr. Janway was dressed for church before any of the rest of the family. He attended that week and the next and the week after that. After a month he asked to be baptized.

Cecil, the older brother, grew up to be a beloved pastor and eventually a denominational official in his organization, the Assemblies of God. Ray became an electrical engineer but was always active in church. Today he is retired, but he is a volunteer with the Gideons and helps to lead a ministry to the local parish lockup.  (Louisiana has parishes rather than counties.)

Here's a cool link on MLK (a day late).

Holy Ground
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

Twenty years ago I attended a Chi Alpha conference at Grambling State University. Chi Alpha is a Christian student organization. At that conference I met the lady who was to become my wife. Mary was a junior at what was then known as USL -- the University of Southwestern Louisiana, but I prefer to think of it as the University of Super Ladies! I was a senior at USM... (USL is now ULL, which also works well -- the University of Lovely Ladies or Oo-La-La!)

I recently had the honor of speaking to the Chi Alpha chapter at Grambling. I thoroghly enjoyed hanging out with the campus pastor Nate and a wonderful group of students who love Jesus and are committed to His work in the world. It was also wonderful to revisit the place where I met the love of my life.

golden morning
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

I like to go walking in the woods and praying in the morning. I always bring my camera with me just in case. I want to cultivate photography as an expression of worship, an outlet for expressing awe of and intimacy with the Creator

Oak Mountain State Park
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

I went to out taking pictures early this morning. The mist on the lake was really nice. This was turned out a bit like an impressionist painting.

I was always lousy in math, but lately I've been collecting some humorous definitions that can be expressed as mathematical equations. Here's how it works.  Anytime you hear the word "with" it can be translated "plus" and the word "without" can be translated "minus". Here are some examples. If you can come up with any more, feel free to contribute!

• Communism = Fascism - the ability to make the trains run on time
  

I came across this one in Robert Kaplan's book Balkan Ghosts. The original quote was something to the effect that in the end Communism was exposed for what it was: Fascism without the ability to make the trains run on time. Having lived mostly in the Balkans since '95, this one really hits home.

• Singapore = Disneyland + the death penalty
  

I wish I could remember where I heard this one.

• Emergent Christians = Calvinists + tattoos

If I remember right I came across this one on a blog post by Earl Creps. The point is that the Emergent movement/conversation/or whatever may not be as radical/innovative/heretical as everyone usually supposes, i.e. that the differences may be more stylistic than substantive.

• 
  
• Missouri Synod Lutherans = fundamentalists + cigars
  

I think I heard this one from a professor at Vanguard U. who was married to a lady from a Missourri Synod background. I doubt his wife smoked cigars though. She's an opera singer, so it would probably have messed up her voice.

As I was thinking about all this, it occurred to me that part of the famous poem about love in 1 Corinthians 13 could be made into a series of equations.  I know, it's really ugly to reduce poetry to mere math.  But in this case, I wonder whether we're so familiar with the poetry that we've be've built up immunity.  Maybe we could better appreciate the power of the poetry if we came at it for once from a little different angle.  So here goes:  (Quotes are from NIV.)

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."
tongues of men  + tongues of angels - love = noise

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
prophecy + total insight + knowledge + faith to the tenth power - love = 0, 
or (spiritual gifts * infinity) - love = 0

"If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
(act of charity * 1,000,000) + (act of self sacrifice * 1,000,000) - love = 0

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