To be or not to be

… educated, that is!
by Graeme Smith

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ne of my deepest concerns regarding many within The Salvation Army of the Western world is an obsession with education. Actually, it is in particular the education of Salvation Army officers that seems to be the real issue for me. My concern is that there seems to be a growing number who believe that degree-educated candidates are the only ones who will eventually make good officers.

My problem with this is that I can’t understand why!

You see, I look around The Salvation Army world and see countless uneducated officers leading corps, centres, divisions - maybe even territories - and have to ask whether their service is any less competent because of not having gained a degree. I look at some of my erstwhile colleagues in Latvia and wonder why their loving, dedicated and incredibly successful service should be discounted because they don’t hold any certificates.

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Deeper shade of grey | tears of an angel

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annah’s small hand shook mine. She was pleased to see me and oozed full-hearted love. Hannah is a member at Maidstone [UK] Salvation Army and she is welcoming me to the service. Hannah, in her thirties, has Downs Syndrome.

The service has been great, creative and meaningful. People have responded positively to the challenge to think through what it is to ‘come to Jesus’, what it is to allow God to minister to us, to identify ‘our angels’ Matthew 4:11.

As the time of reflection comes to a close we sing ‘I surrender all‘. I start thinking through the multiple coincidences of the day - the words we are singing align with the words I had read earlier, independently of each other. One of the reflections was by Henri Nouwen and the other Thomas Merton. Both were about the fist. We sing through the verses and I think through concepts of attachment and detachment that Merton speaks of in describing the ‘art of gaining ground through dying a little’. The song comes to a close and a small hand on my shoulder gets me to turn around. It is Hannah and she is crying. She stands and hugs me while I sit. I’m not big on hugging but it seems that Hannah is!

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Psalm from Zimbabwe

by Rochelle McAlister | 22/01/2008

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ow long, Lord? How long will you leave us in the dark – waiting for light – even just a few hours of light?

How long, Lord? How long must we continue begging for daily bread? Longing for clean water?

How long, Lord? How long will you send these floods which are drowning our crops? Are we evil, Lord? Do you not see good in any of us?

How long, Lord? How long will we watch young women and girls sell their bodies and their souls for school fees?

How long, Lord? How long must we be beaten in the sun-scorched queues at the bank – just to take out our own money?

How long, Lord? How long before a box of matches will cost less than a million dollars? Before our salaries can actually cover the transport to work?

How long, Lord? How long will we look into the eyes of malnourished infants, saying to them, “Sorry, you were born at a bad time?”

How long, Lord? How long will we turn back old men from hospitals and clinics without any medicine, saying to them, “Sorry, you are dying at a bad time?”

How long, Lord? How long will death prowl through our communities, devouring our mothers, sons, sisters, husbands…?

How long, Lord? How long will we have peace – this silencing, suffocating, suffering peace?

How long, Lord? How long will we sing your praises – waiting for your faithfulness to be great, waiting for you to move in mysterious ways?

How long, Lord? How long before we can hope again, dream again?

Lord, we trust in your unfailing love, your goodness, your salvation.

But Lord, for how long?

Writer: Rochelle and her husband John work for The Salvation Army in Harare, Zimbabwe. Rochelle is the territorial HIV/AIDS Coordinator. They have learned that they always took electricity and food on the shelves for granted, and they appreciate any prayers you can spare for their new homeland. Feel free to follow their adventures on their blog.

Ragamuffin: web world wandering

… a link exchange

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ne recreational activity that I enjoy is surfing. Surfing the web has helped me keep my weight down – I don’t eat around my computer! In today’s blog I would like to share some of the sites (links) that I visit often for updates on what is going on in web-world. Of course theRubicon is the one I check frequently – at least every Monday! theRubicon helps me widen my knowledge of what people are thinking in our Salvation Army world. It widens my vision of what we can be. It stretches my thinking on various issues that relate to the movement I am a part of today.

Here are some other links:

Books | This link helps me see, in a limited way, what people are reading. It is a “best sellers” list of Christian retailing.

Talks | This website has various teachers and preachers. Some are good, some are great and some are just better left unheard. One of my favs is Chuck Swindoll. He is an American favorite for many Bible teachers.

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Thinkaloud | true wisdom

… too important to be left to well-meaning people

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isdom is a rare commodity which is much sought after and sorely needed. The capacity of discernment, so that a person is able to make the right decision while surrounded by many and conflicting voices, is prized highly.

Many options face each of us. Seldom - if ever - are we faced with a single choice regarding decisions we must make if life is to go on. This is true globally where ordinary people who have reached high political office are required by their position to make decisions that affect millions. This is also true in day-to-day living, where we know that an unwise decision may have unwelcome consequences for months and years to come.

Where is a person to turn for sound advice? Is there a source of true wisdom that can be tapped, and that will save us from the foolishness caused by our unwise decisions?

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Double~take | The cross

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or the longest time when I was younger, I would never breathe when we drove past a cemetery. Thank goodness I never had to go to a funeral till my mid-teens, or I might have passed out. I know I’m not the only one either – once on a bus, where its route took us past a graveyard, I overheard some kids doing the exact same thing.

It’s sad when something meant to stand for hope turns into the exact opposite. You see graveyards full of graves topped with crosses, when chances are most beneath them might never have really known much about God at all.

In a book about World War I these lines caught my eye:

We battalions came to the four crossroads where there were trenches in the corn, by a crucifix of wood in a damaged brick shrine… From his crucifix the Man of Sorrows watched our going. One wondered if His mild look was bent especially on those marked for death that day.

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Vox populi | deconstruction rants

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he problem with The Salvation Army…” and so the line goes with a never-ending cavalcade of suggestions of every perceived problem with our _____________. See, I’m not even sure what to call us for fear of eliciting a whole raft of comments from the vox populi. In my humble estimation, according to rumblings from the floor, we could scrap all levels of bureaucracy, and either turn or keep steering this ship in the right direction by putting a bunch of front-line Salvationists in a room to solve all of our issues. Then again, the direction would depend on who was in the room.

What was ever wrong with just having a mission and following that mission. I get so tired of all the belly-aching about what we need to do and where we need to go. Look where it gets us. We chased the Hybels’ Seeker Sensitive model, and came up to a dead-end. Even Hybels left the ship with sails at half-mast.

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A blue mosaic, black arrow and a key

by Yuri Zelentsov

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ny reasonably devoted Salvationist can easily quote “I’ll fight” by the Founder. It is quite inspirational, dramatic and helps a lot when you think you are beginning to lose your focus. How many songs are written on that subject, how many essays, sermons and whole books!

I wrote a song, too - well, still writing. Everything rhymes and fits the music quite well, up to the “men go to prison, in and out” bit. I’m struggling with that one.

Maybe that’s because I never thought it would be my battle front to fight. Yes, I know Jesus talked about it, and yes, I have been to several prisons in Russia on short visits. But until now I have never really thought through why we do it - what is so important about it that Jesus took time to speak about visiting inmates.

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Deeper shade of grey | Faith House

A backgrounder for posts to come

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ings Cross, in London, England, is pretty much as inner city as it gets. The kind of place that people tend to travel through, pretty quickly. Spend time there and you’ll soon see all the tale tell signs of fragmentation, obvious, in your face, hardly hidden as commuters rush to their semi detaches in the leafy green suburbs.

It is said that the name would strike fear into prospective Salvation officers who would declare “Any Cross but Kings Cross!!!”. Within a five minute walk from Kings Cross all the issues of a broken community easily ignored and forgotten were there to be seen. The hopeful girl looking for business, furtive glances of possibly a dealer, angry exchanges, aimless loneliness, homelessness.

There is something new in my life. Faith House. A Salvation Army presence trying to bring something of the cohesion of the Kingdom to the chaos of Kings Cross. A place of safety for the working girls, a place of community for the homeless, simply a place for those that need it. Monday nights will be my time to be involved, hopefully to support, to encourage and be part of a family that will give me more than I am sure I can give to it. Estelle and Christine with a team and network of people try to make a difference. I’m glad that I finally acted on a strong urge to get involved.

Deeper shade of grey appears every Wednesday on theRubicon. Find past posts and a bio of Capt. Gordon Cotterill here.

Feline theology - part two

What my cat taught me about God by Brenda Smith

It was a very sad day for our family. Our cat, Taylor, friend and companion for 16 years had to be put down. Taylor had been a good cat; quiet, unassuming, a creature of habit whose days went by in a predicable pattern of eating, sleeping and the occasional stretch. If you ever wondered where Taylor was you looked for her in one of two places – the carpeted stool by the living room window or sunk in deep at the end of our bed. Even though she often went unnoticed, we knew she was around.

Now and again Taylor would straddle up beside your pant leg, meow gently, and remind you that though she was quiet, she still needed to give and receive love. Sometimes while lying on the couch engrossed in a good book, a head would poke up from under the pages purring loudly: hey – I’m here. Time for love! Purrrrrr.

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