The Underground Railroad

More Songs from the Underground

Talk about songs rising up from the Underground! Check out Songs of Justice: A Global Call to Prayer on Youtube.

It's so true... we cannot untangle song & the rise of justice in the Way of Christ. Song serves as encouragement, as teacher, as direction (literally), as message, as code, as inspiration, as community, as expression, as impression, and so much more. 

May more and more songs of justice keep rising up from our many, many undergrounds that we may hear their call from peak to valley, river to road, cave to mountain top. Amen

 

Wunderkind

In the girls' group I help facilitate on Monday nights, we're discussing what our identity in Christ means. For some, it means learning the meaning of our names; for others, it's flexing skills and putting in practice lifestyles of being part of a royal priesthood; still for others, it's taking a huge step of actually trusting this Invisible God - something adults have a hard enough time with, let alone teenage girls.

All of me will "grow old", but a part of me will never "grow up". As I write stories and poems, I still see myself as a young girl, perhaps sixteen or so, looking deeply for the first time into God, Jesus, His world, and His love. It is wounding... much of His Truth and reality I cannot bear. It is healing... it reveals places I never would have thought were hurt. It is fantastic... in the ordinary everday, in the common life of community, in the boredom and chaos, the ups and downs, there is breathless imagination that only God can stretch into infinity. 

What does this have to do with slavery? I mean, this is a blog about human trafficking isn't it? Well, slavery is an identity -- to be a slave shapes how you see yourself and often, it is a morbid and dying sight. However, even past slavery - to those of us who have never been trafficked - there are fears and oppressors over God's creative identity for us (including ourselves). Some days, even the most faithful of abolitionists need a reminder.

So call me childish (I'd prefer "child-like", if must call me something), but Alanis Morisette's Wunderkind is a Song from the Underground that declares so much of who we are... of who I am. "...destined to serve... destined to roam..." It is a declaration of paradoxes, enigmas, and yet full childlike discovery. Written for the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I gravitated instantly to the song. You see, I saw myself very much like Lucy Pevencie growing up -- in wonder, in hiding, in exploration, in daring, in danger, but full of mysterious faith and childlike belief. I still do.

I very much believe that "I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment". 

Will this help end slavery?

Yes.

The mystery of Christ is to be embraced. Once embraced, there's no telling where we will end up. It will be dangerous. BUT... it will be good. Very good.

Cheesy post, perhaps. But today, knowing the very real dangers we're all facing in this struggle for freedom, I needed a childlike perspective speaking truth in ways we adults all too soon forget.

Enjoy.

"Wunderkind" ~ Alanis Morisette

Oh perilous place
Walk backwards toward you
Blink disbelieving eyes chilled to the bone
Most visibly brave
No apprehended gloom
First to take this foot to virgin snow

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I lift the envelope pushed far enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne
destined to serve
destined to roam

Oh ominous place
Spellbound and un-childproofed
My least favorite chill to bear alone

Compatriots in place
They’d cringe if I told you
Our best back pocket secret: our bond full blown

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am a pioneer naïve enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne
destined to seek
destined to know

Most beautiful place
Reborn and blown off roof
My view: about face whether, great will be done

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am a groundbreaker naïve enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne

I am a magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment
I am a wunderkind ohwowoh
I am the Joan of Arc and smart enough to believe this
I am a princess on the way to my throne

Destined to reign, destined to roam
Destined to reign, destined to roam
Ohahahoohah
Ohahahoohah
Destined to reign, destined to roam
Destined to reign, destined to roam

 

Slavery Begins At Home

I've been trying to reconcile Biblical doctrines that have justified slavery during bible times, throughout history, and into today. It's not an easy task. Once I sense I've grabbed onto a valid thread, my mind is assaulted with the sad and broken way Jesus was used to destroy other people.

Today in church it was announced that we would be featuring the movie Courageous in March. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I will refrain from personal comments since I don't have a right to them yet. Comments from brothers and sisters who have seen the film stem from "It was the best movie ever!", and  "We need more films to show what it means to be a dad!", to  "As a black man, why do Christian movies insist on steretyping us again and again?" and "As usual, us Latinos are the labourers and brunts of jokes. This is all white, suburban Christianity has to say about humor?", all the way to the issue of egalitarian parenting v. complementarian. Again... withholding judgement until I see it personally. 

But I did do some digging. The movie has sparked some issue as to the oppression of women and racism, which, for some seems ridiculous and that those who pick up on these perceived themes are missing the point of the whole movie. Possibly. I'm not discounting that. Those who claim these themes are evident insist that this is the true agenda of the film: not that fathers need to be present, but that they need to dominate the family. Possibly. I am not black or Latina, so I have not lived in a cultural setting where my entire people, to this day, are still often seen as "less". But I am a woman, and one that is whole and complete in Christ, and equal to my brothers in Christ.

How does this relate to slavery?

If minority groups, single moms, people of color, and other marginalized groups are suggesting the film is backing a system of thinking that has brought about violence, lies, hatred, oppression, and other "-isms", these are not voices to be ignored. They might not be correct point-for-point, but once again: many of us have not been raised to be ridiculed as a "Spic", or be the "token black" in the media. The Kendrick Brothers, Southern Baptists by association, produced the film and may very well have had one single message to get across: we need dads. Perhaps not. As I kept researching, I saw that the brothers have been linked to Vision Forum, a fundamentalist Christian pro-family group.

So I kept digging. Here are some comments found on "Doug's Blog":

"Adoption isn’t charity, it’s war." (concering the LGBTQ community taking in foster/adoptive children)

"Even as caging and exploiting tribal people for exhibition is wrong (as was famously done in 1904 at the Bronx Zoo to a Congolese pygmy named Ota Benga), so too is elevating their backwards pagan culture as superior to more developed civilizations that owe their advancements to Christian ideals." (referring to how Christians should approach tribal civilizations still present in our world today)

"Our founding fathers intended religion and morality to be the pillars of the new republic, providing the restraint that would allow maximum liberty for the citizenry. Today, this delicate balance of religion and the state has been eroded by a secularist push to isolate Christianity in our culture and render it irrelevant. The choice in our day is a stark one: As a people we either return to our Christian roots or we divorce God altogether. Returning to the principles established by our founders is the way to restore moral sanity and rebuild the foundations that made our nation great." 

There is more to read, and I'll leave you to do so at your leisure. However, when recurring themes of patriarchy, racism, domination, colonization, hyper-nationalism keep appearing, we must understand that these are integral ingredients that create a world ripe for slavery. Why are people still insisting on instilling such values in their children when the bible was taken so far out of context before, used as weaponry even, to "civilize the noble savage", or to degrade gay people as less than human (or doomed to hell), or judge single moms as incomplete families?

The oppression of women in the family and in society creates vulnerability. They are the first to be bought and sold, because the man of the house must remain to hold his kingdom together. Women are the weaker sex, thus easier prey. When we twist the Bible into the white colonized version that Vision Forum has done, we create more vulnerable women, men and children. 

Do the Sherwood brothers subscribe dogmatically to VF? I don't know for sure. Does this make Courageous suspect in its message(s)? Well, as believers we are to be wise, calm and open to what others have to say. So yes, I do believe the message of dads getting back on track is a critical theme - dads that serve, dads that love, dads that seek help when required, dads that are examples. However, racism and slave-states were built on covert and subtle messages of incorrect theology many times over. VF is an example of this. 

I, for one, am going in with caution. VF has made its mandate clear. However... a movie is just a movie. If I disagree with Courageous or its message, no one's making me watch it. Furthermore, disagreement can lead to fruitful discussion more than every person in the room experiencing a tearful altar call. It can also lead to pointless divisions, as much as tearful altar calls lead to emotional changes that last but a day.

My larger point here was to uncover some of the "family values" that aren't exactly family values at all, but rather Scripture guised in the American/Canadian dream, the white middle class ideal, and the continuing oppression of colonizers around the world in the name of evangelism. By doing so, Christians continue to contribute to slavery instead of abolishing it. 

But hey... that's just my take.

My Bible Says Slavery Is A-Okay

I've been mulling this discussion over and over again in my head. When I encounter believers who are extremely uncomfortable and even disgusted at the modern faces of slavery (as we all need to be), but become confused as to what the Bible actually says about slavery, some deep and serious questions arise.

Evangelicals assuage the OT's take on slavery by interpreting it as being more of an employer/employee relationship. If we make it look like our modern business world as much as possible, then God for sure would be against all forms of REAL slavery.

The thing here is: that interpretation doesn't hold water. At all. When purchasing a slave (in Bible times and into modern times), the master often purchased the whole family, all of their possessions, and rights to property. The master did not just buy someone's services. They bought the person. In the flesh. Slaves were owned as property just like cattle, graineries, fields and vineyards. While we might find this difficult to swallow ("How could our God EVER allow such a thing?!"), it is important to have an accurate perspective from the outset before placing our perceptions not only of God, but of our cultural world onto things that took place in the past.

So what about slavery in the Bible?

What about slavery that was church sanctioned in past centuries? What theologies justified such action? What ramifications are we living with now?

What about today?

One woman wrote her thoughts in an email agreeing that sexual slavery is most certainly an offense to God at all times, especially against children. However, she found no problem with labor trafficking. If we were to effectively end labour and chattel slavery in our world today, our entire economic and employment systems would collapse. In her mind, there is a time and place to purchase people.

Could just be me, but I feel as if I've heard such claims before...

Anyway... in the coming weeks, I'm going to delve in the Bible and other documents to get a better grasp of why slavery ever existed to begin with, why Christians sanctioned it throughout history (and why some didn't), and... does God sanction slavery? Did He ever?

For some, freedom for captives isn't even remotely a part of the Gospel so these discussions might stop for some before they start. Others find social justice to be a vehicle TO their version of the Gospel. I'll be up front and declare that social justice IS a part of the Gospel as a whole. It cannot be divided from the Good News, nor taken from Christ's heart for the poor and oppressed.

So that's where I'm coming from. Stay tuned. The ride could get interesting.

It Is Selfish To Have A Surrogate Baby

Indian surrogate mothers listen to a doctor at 'surrogate mothers' home in Anand, near Ahmedabad. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images

In an age when people are getting married later, are choosing to live alternative or designer lifestyles, and the gap between rich and poor is ever-growing, we must be all the more vigilant as to how our lifestyles can continue to oppress others. Baby-markets are turning children into commodities even before they're born. The impulse to have a child of one's own, especially if it is biologically impossible between partners, is daunting. Yet we cannot allow our impulses to dictate actions that create more buying and selling of people, and rifts between "the haves" and "the have nots". There are children in Canada, the US, and the UK all waiting desparately for homes - many of whom have been shuffled around a good deal already. Instead of creating baby factories and destroying the lives of women and children for our own desires, perhaps we need re-tune our desires to make an impact on the lives children right before our eyes.

I would posit that the desire to have children is certainly not selfish, but the process of "rent-a-womb" certainly is, especially when considering children already needing homes and families. Thoughts? Questions? Reactions?

As Julie Bindel of The Guardian puts it:

The documentary Google Baby, transmitted on Channel 4 earlier this year features a clinic and "surrogacy house" in India, the "rent-a-womb capital of the world". Many of the women having babies for rich westerners have been pimped into surrogacy by their husbands, and are powerless to resist. The women sleep in cramped conditions and are controlled to the point of being told when to eat, drink and sleep. There are serious physical and mental health consequences for both the egg donor and the surrogate, and yet this practice is becoming increasingly normalised.

In India hundreds of brokers benefit from reproductive tourism now worth an estimated half a billion dollars a year. There are 350 clinics offering surrogacy around the country. Prices in India for the full service including eggs, drugs, the surrogate and all medical treatment are significantly lower than in Europe or the US, prompting many individuals and couples from Europe to opt for its services.

For the full article, click here: It Is Selfish to Have a Surrogate Baby

For The Slave is Our Brother...

How do we end slavery in our own communities? We create family... we welcome those in chains... we see the chains we wield or carry ourselves and surrender them to Jesus... we seek active peace, confess the reality of divisions between us denominationally, racially, socio-economically, and work vigorously to reconcile them... we lament injustice, praise when it is called for, & see all life as sacred worship... we play, laugh, and choose a rooted love in a hypermobile culture... we become new creatures unlike any created thing ever seen, & declare in word & silence the Spirit's transformation all of our lives.

NoKo One Large Trafficked Culture?

When you take a good long look at a picture of one man, one woman, one child, one person, it is hard to believe that a solitary figure could embody the seed of so much destruction, poverty, damnation, and evil. (I'm not going to use the Hitler analogy, as others have done, since the guy has become the stereotypical basis of comparison of our age). Kim Jong Il was his own form of dictator.

After reading the comments and persecptives of people in the 'free world', reeling from the shock of Kim's death, I was struck by the massive comparison of North Koreans and trafficked people, with Kim Jong Il being the most powerful pimp of the Asian world.

What do I mean?

I mean, North Koreans were subject to a life of fear, deprivation, punishment, and absolute forced loyalty to the political state. Without this, people were hauled off to concentration camps, families divided, citizens killed outright.

"If you do not do what I say right now, I will hurt you and your loved ones."

Classic pimp manouver. Classic power tactics. Yet these tactics have been used for so long, and used so well that many North Koreans feel a deep sense of commitment still to their deceased leader. Comments from the West: "Why?! They're free now! What's wrong with them??"

In the West, we have been so trained to believe that when freedom is offered, oppressed people will automatically jump at our offers, race towards freedom, and be thankful for the end of the nightmare.

Not so.

People... we must be patient. First of all, the world is watching and waiting to see if the totalitarian regime will continue under Kim's 3rd son or if there will be an uprising. Or... will some altogether different happen? No matter the course, believers of the kingdom must continue to support those voices in NoKo who are daring to speak out for freedom, for the malnourishment of their people, for the beauty of their culture, and for singing those songs rising from the underground. They do so at their peril, at the risk of their lives, and at the risk of their families.

When a person or people group is oppressed for a long period of time, or when the oppression is so pervasive that you cannot stand or sit without the blessing or permission of the 'benevolent' leader, people's minds demand a reconciliation of this collision of worlds -- good and evil, freedom and slavery. Often this can look like oppressed people's loving and being devoted towards the almighty pimp - god, in their worlds. To do anything otherwise is to betray the only being who truly cares for them.

Sound familiar?

I cringe to think on it.

Instead of being angry or frustrated with North Koreans who may exhibit these tendencies at this time, we ought to be supporting the 'dissidents' who are valiantly working as change agents in their home country, and praying for all North Koreans and their beloved status before Jesus Christ... not a human dictator seeking undiluted power. This will take time... patience... and also a broadening of our own minds. When the freedom seeds that have been planted in NoKo sprout, they might bear fruit -- true fruit -- to which we are unaccustomed to seeing. Here, too, we must be patient as we learn from our brothers and sisters as they use their voices for the kingdom.

In the meantime, as much as we desire human rights, dignity, and the love of Christ to rise up within NoKo, we must never, ever forget the indignities and the affronts to people in our 'modern' countries. Democracy has shown itself to have its own form of terror and degradation. It is easy to point fingers at violent expressions of human abuses (North Korean concentration camps), but we justify our funny little Arab jokes, spits towards aboriginal people, or even to brothers and sisters in our Body. We even get more than a little pissed off when these seeds of malice are pointed out to us. Undercurrents such as these are the makings of a dictatorship, as well as poison to ourselves as persons. Yet... we're still 'better off' and better people than 'them'. Are we?

It is at times I am thankful we are not accountable to any form of political regime, leader or movement. Our allegiance is to the Creator... our Sustainer... our Saviour... our Eternal... our Messiah -- Jesus the Christ, Son of the Living God. His reign is that of love for all peoples and this world, for all peoples and the world the Word created. And His reign will know no end.

Now if that sounds like brainwashed, unrelenting loyalty to you...

... ask audacious questions of this Christ.

See what happens.

"Chains Shall He Break..."

As I stood with my congregation this morning, it was with the uneasy frustration of "nothingness" once again. Why the jadedness, I cannot say for sure at this point, but each time I rise to sing, I feel guilty for praising God with my lips, but having my heart far from Him.

Yet today... even the entire congregation was different. We sang traditional carols of the season, but there was an "umph" to our voices... a desperation... a shouting out that I had not heard (or perhaps had not been able to hear) for many months. We were a hungry people -- arms reached out to gather their loved ones close, shoulders were touched gently, and our spirits began to become loud, rather than our physical voices. I cannot explain it. Nor do I care to.

We began singing "O Holy Night", and our voices crescendoed. As we came to the next verse, my heart about stopped: "How had I been so blind as to not see this before?" I had sung this song many, many times, yet these words have never pierced me so profoundly as they did today.

"Truly He taught us to love one another..."

People are hard to love. We are. Sometimes, we turn to the poor and marginalized so that we can find someone "easy to love" because of their circumstance, rather than turning to the person next to us with whom we might have a disagreement, with whom we might be afraid of, or for whom we harbor secret resentments. Only we find the poor and marginalized are just as hard to love as ourselves, for the reflect the very same things we see in ourselves that we resent, fear, and loathe.

"His law is Love, and His gospel is peace..."

Jesus did not merely teach love. Had He stopped at that, we all know it would have come to nothing more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. But Jesus Christ IS love... thus His good news can be no other way than love and peace. God cannot be other than He is, and He is love. He loved us, and commands us to love one another not to oppress us, but to shape us more into His likeness. "Ahhh... but people are so hard to love"... hmmm. Yet is was God who chose to put skin on. Take a moment to think about how hard that was.

"Chains shall He break, for the slave... he is our brother..."

Advent is our timing of preparation. Not only do we prepare to announce compassion and justice, to assist victims, or to raise awareness of the chains people around the world bear daily... but we prepare ourselves to welcome warmly and lovingly these people we once considered beneath us. That thought might sound repugnant to us, especially those of us who emphatically believe in equality before God, but when push comes to shove: there are people groups whom we distance ourselves from. Oh sure, it's all well and good once they 'repent' and become like us, but until then, they must drop the chains themselves.

This line in the verse I nearly shouted... HE shall break the chains. It will not be any work of ours alone, nor are we to stand back and demand slaves free themselves of their burdens and look like we do first before they sense our love. Hence... we prepare. Often we think we are ready to embrace the released captive, only to find skeletons in our closets that prevent us from doing so.

"... and in His Name, ALL OPPRESSION SHALL CEASE."

Done.

Gone.

No more.

Not from traffickers.

Not from pimps.

Not from buyers.

Not from you.

Not from me.

Not from history.

Not from now.

Not from governments.

Not from corporations.

Not from each other.

No more.

I belted out this stanza like I had never sung it before in my life. For the children bought and sold to make our carpets... for the men bought and sold for their organs... for the women bought and sold just because they are women... for the many bought and sold to be destroyed through indentured servitude... for the many of all ages bought and sold to be destroyed by sex, porn, and prostitution... for the many bought and sold in the name of God for whatever deceitful purpose contrived by evil doers... we all sang together as one this morning. I pray that our humble and broken offering does not fall on deaf ears, divine or human.

Even in the brothels, there is the sacred. If God is everywhere, then He is indeed everywhere. It makes the saddest and most horrific of darknesses the holiest of nights. I don't say this lightly, or to suggest that because God is present, He is condoning the buying of flesh. Hardly.

What I am saying is... "chains shall He brake for the slave, he is our brother. And in His Name, all oppression shall cease."

If God Love chooses to enter flesh by way of the poorest class, nation, gender on earth, then no one anywhere is out of reach of His peace. The promise is true. Oppression will cease.

When A Girl Says "No", She Of Course Means "Yes"

(picture taken from Jezebel Magazine, Anna North, Dec 09, 2011)

A new study coming out of the University of Surrey in the UK indicates that participants identified more with the comments of real life rapists than with the harmless comments found in men's magazines. For the full article, please click on Can You Tell The Difference Between a Men's Magazine and a Rapist?

The exploding information sharing platform TED had a conversation this past week (see conversation here at TED Conversation) that I was watching closely. What I found disturbing -- more than the cited statistic that the average age of a boy's exposure to hardcore porn is now only 11 years old -- was the desire for parents to continue to use porn as a way of positive sexual education for their children. Of course they're going to experiment, so why shouldn't they know how to make themselves feel good as long as it's consenual?

So when I read about adults identifying more with the comments of convicted rapists rather than these educational magazines about liberating sexuality, I become seriously concerned.

1. The reality is: our hyper-sexualized culture has become so demanding that we have whatever kind of sex we want, when we want it, that we have lost focus. Instead of evolving or being liberated from the oppressive Victorian Age, we are descending into a kind of animal frenzy with a thin veneer of justification on top of us.

2. Porn is not educational. It is still largely male-centric: that is, women are still the objects and men are still the consumers. Despite what liberated feminists believe, or want to believe, women are still glossy pin-ups for guys to get off by. We haven't evolved nearly as much as we would want others to be. And despite what liberated feminists declare ("Well I know plenty of smart, sophisticated, learned, intelligent sex workers!"), I have yet to met a sex worker who fully loves her choices, or even sees her role in society as a choiceto begin with. Granted, I have not met every sex trade worker in the country, but I've met and known enough to be convinced that prostitution and porn are not black/white choices, if choice as we know it even enters the picture. (and by 'liberated feminist', I'm using a term LFs use to declare that they are women fully embracing all forms of sexuality, and that expressions of such sexuality must be engaged in to be fully woman... fully human... any suggestion to the contrary is seen as oppression. Please do not confuse this rather lopsided form of feminism with other uplifting, spirit-serving forms)

3. If people are struggling to have conversations with kids about sexuality and are turning to porn for it, what is lacking in our churches and spiritual circles where there ought to be a better chance for truth and a fuller scope of relationships? I understand movements like the Family Movement or the Purity Movement, but parts of me wonder: if we declare "what is a family" or "what is pure" so starkly, are we effectively creating an elitism without considering the ramifications? Are kids looking at porn not just for curiousity, but because they are scared to share their questions in spiritual circles for fear of being branded a sinner or given a bunch of theology that might just... kill their spirits? I hate porn. I hate it with a passion. I hate what it's done to our kids, our communities, and our families. But if a girl loses her virginity and is told "You're not pure anymore", I get almost as equally disturbed. Since when did sex determine purity? I thought that was the Spirit's work... the reaction of our churches has sometimes been as fanatical and puritanical as porn has become hardcore and extreme. 

4. In this hyper-sexualized culture, I know we need to draw attention to the realities of porn -- that it is selfish, deceitful, oppressive, and crude. It does nothing but take, take, take and has nothing to do with equality, liberation, or rights. But I need to say this too: as big of a part that porn plays in the sex trade, are those wanting to stand in abolition truly wanting to end sex's big dollar grip on our lives or... are we still drawn just to the sex aspect of it?

Ouch.

I can testify truly that to find volunteers to be advocates for those caught in labor trafficking are suddenly much harder to find when the sex aspect is less involved. Why is that? Are we all voyeurs at heart? I'd like to think not, but I can't help but wonder. Some days, I hate sharing the reality of sex trafficking having met people who use such a ministry to get the juicy goods. There are many people of great character who are not as such, but yes... I have met those who kind of fall away when the sex aspect is diminished. 

5. I hardly think returning to the Victorian era is any kind of answer. Being prudes or uptight people when it comes to sexual dialogue only pushes the porn agenda further -- then it really does become a viable option of learning. What are ways we can engage our kids with truth and love while exposing porn for what it is: abusive, addictive, oppressive shit that has destroyed millions of lives?

When men's magazines and rapists are both giving the SAME MESSAGES... do you think the violence is going to stop? Do you think the lust will? Do you think the trafficking will?

Oh but I forgot... women choose this lifestyle as fully liberated women who deserve the equal respect of the sex trade. Men have needs. They all look so happy in those mags... bars... hotel rooms... 

I Happen to Love the Dark

I am one of those freaky people who loves it when it gets dark by 4pm. I love the snow... I love the early sunsets... I love being hushed by the dark on my way home from work.

Please don't misunderstand me: I've struggled with my share of depression related to long dark days without sunlight. I know it can be taxing on body and spirit when we live in darkness for too long. Perhaps that's the point... 

There was a time when all darkness held for me was sheer terror... ghosts... demons... memories... pain... agony... when all things evil were related to the dark, there was no possibility for me to see the beauty in the darkness. Deep healing and freedom needed to come so that I could encounter Jesus Christ in the darkness -- the darkness He created, the darkness His Spirit hovered in while over the face of the deep (Genesis 1), the darkness He came to Nicodemus by, the darkness that showed His natal star...

Such wonder! Awe... beauty... quiet... somber reflection as I tell myself the story of Advent in the reaches of the night... 

I close my eyes, and I see snow-laden paths in a wood -- 2 paths diverging away from each other, yet other than that, equally adrift with snow, equally dark 'round the bend, equal in every respect. There are no footprints, no signs, no light but the wan moon trying to break through the deep clouds. Which do I take? 

Neither. 

This sacred space is a crossroads for me to stop... to remember... to wait... Advent is preparation, waiting, and desiring. I need not move from this untouched scene. It is cold. It is dark. I can feel winter's chill, but the journey is also about stopping before moving on. So here I am in Advent... loving both trails into the forest... eager to explore both... yet sensing the Spirit closer than my own frosty breath on the air soaking into my own soul. He dwells here. So here I dwell. He enjoys this place. So I enjoy it. I need not fear of becoming stagnant. He will tell me when to move on. I need not fear evil invading this place, for it is not allowed -- no temptation of mine, no evil of others, no demons of the pit. For now... for tonight... I am to be enveloped by the all consuming silence, but for the snowflakes tapping against my coat.

This is my prayer for our young children, bought and sold around the world.

Anyone who has worked with people exploited by the slave trade, especially the sex trade (or any form of abuse, for that matter), will know that the night holds a special kind of terror and bondage for them. I was never bought or sold. But I understand the terror. Acting out, tantrums, freak outs often all happen at bedtime or during the night. This is where the darkness -- created by God -- has itself been abused and exploited. This is when deeds of evil are gleeful. This is when many acts of exploitation are at their peak. The memories of these things are no less violating than the acts themselves.

So as I move into Advent... still in the darkness of the wood, snow, and Spirit... it is my fervent prayer that our youth will know darkness as beauty... as safe... as restful... as peaceful... as Spirit-filled. It will not be an easy road to come to. I know this as a truth. For some, it will take a lifetime.

But the Spirit moves and dwells in the dark as He does in the Light, exposing deeds of darkness (darkness here referring to evil, rather than the Spirit-created darkness). When freedom comes, may it come not only with tears and toil, but with a tired, weary, young head laying her head down on a pillow, breathing slowly... softly... as a child should... secure that her Lord and Shepherd is guarding her very essence, her body, her dreams... her life.

Lord, may it be so.

Amen.