Notes From Jon

My “Speaking of Faith” column for this week’s issue of the K-V Dispatch:

Now that I’ve gotten your attention with the title…

I’m usually not a rebel – not even a rebellious person.  I have a gentle nature that avoids confrontation, so I usually place myself in the category of “peacemaker” – even when I have a strong opinion on something.  To me, there are only a few things in life that are really worth going to battle over – whether it’s a war of weapons or of words.

That’s why I‘m surprised how strongly I feel about politics and religion.  As a pastor, I realize I’m in the minority here in Southside Virginia.  In fact, I’ve already had a few discussions with folks here who believe otherwise.  It seems people want me to tell them what to think, what to say – some even want me to tell them how to vote.  I almost feel that, as a pastor, it’s expected of me. Read the rest of this entry »

I usually wait to post my Speaking of Faith articles after they’ve been published, but I’ve come to realize that most folks who will read this blog will probably not read the paper, and vise-versa.  So I guess it’s OK to pre-post this article… it will likely appear in next week’s Kenbridge-Victoria Dispatch.

An Angry Email

In the last couple of weeks, my inbox has seen a flood of patriotic forwards.  Perhaps they were sparked by a combination of Memorial Day, increased tensions in the Middle East, and the approaching final leg of the presidential contest.  Whatever the reason, political fervor is at an all-time high – and you can tell by the kinds of things that are going around on the internet.

One email in particular has caught my attention.  I’ve gotten it three times now, from three very different people.  It’s supposedly written by a ticked-off housewife in New Jersey… who, by the way, chose to remain anonymous.  The writer rants and raves against anyone who has criticized the many scandals that have plagued the US military in Iraq – the Abu Ghraib scandal, treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, mishandling of the Quran, and various extreme torture tactics.  She calls Muslims and Iraqis cowards, thugs, and fanatics. Read the rest of this entry »

I published these columns in the KV-Dispatch as a two-part series during March.

(Part 1)

When I first moved to Kenbridge two and a half years ago, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: Nearly everything here has two names.  Roads, homes, buildings, stores – everything has a “published” name.  But then there’s the “real” name of things, which usually is what that place or thing was called at some point in the past.  It’s a name that still exists in the social memory, a name that is stronger than any current attachments.  There’s no sign out front to announce these “real” names, but nearly everyone knows what they are.

I’ll give you some examples from here in Kenbridge (no one’s filled me in on the secret names in Victoria, yet).  The grocery store up the road?  Sure, the sign says “Farmer’s Foods,” but most everyone still calls it “Bill’s.”  When I ask someone for directions, sometimes I’ll get something like, “you take the turn after the bridge,” “over by the charcoal plant,” or “past the handle factory,” places that no longer exist or that are now used for other purposes.  For many decades, the roads around here had no names, only numbers; so on occasion someone will begin giving directions using numbers instead of street names.  The Clarke family lives just up the road from us in a house that has three names, none of which describe the current owners – the Blackwell House, the Bed-and-Breakfast, or the “Porcelain Pond.”

If you’re a native “Lunenburger,” you’re smiling.  If you’ve come here from somewhere else or if you’ve ever moved to a small town, you’re nodding in agreement.  If you haven’t, you’re probably scratching your head.

While this practice certainly honors the long history of the “Mother of Counties” and of her communities, I believe it also serves as a mirror showing us who we are today.  All these places live “in between” identities.  They haven’t quite shed the history of the old name or its meaning, but they haven’t quite discovered (or lived into) their new name, either.

I think our county and communities are in a similar place.  Once a thriving center for tobacco and railroad traffic, Lunenburg County is now in an “in between” place – not what we used to be, but not having discovered our new identity, either.  We can look at this predicament in one of two ways – the end of a dead-end street, or a crossroads with a new opportunity to define ourselves.

As I reflected on this, I was reminded of a few people of faith who were given new names to live into.  Abram, Sarai, Jacob, Simon, all were given new names by God – names they had to gradually live into.  As we read their stories in the scripture, we find them “in between” identities.  For example, Abram, the son of an “exalted father,” became Abraham, the “father of a multitude,” even though he didn’t yet have a single child to pass on the family name.

God knew what these men and women could become, and gave them names that they would eventually fulfill.  But what if Abram got so stuck in dwelling on his childless past that he’d never moved forward in faith?  What if Simon had decided he liked his old name better than “Peter?”  Names don’t assign our identity, any more than your name defined who you were from the moment you were born.  No, identity is discovered and chosen – or rejected.

Are we bold enough to accept a “new name” for our community?  I’m not talking about renaming the county or the towns.  I mean, are we willing to dream of what we could become – a dream big enough to reshape our identity?  It’s not unheard of – communities all around our nation and world are having to re-dream their identities in light of our rapidly changing planet.  Old industries have been replaced by newer ones, the internet has made it easy to “travel” around the globe in less than a second, the cities are creeping into the country, and the people of the world are literally at our doorstep.  In a world that changes this rapidly, either we will have to define our own new identity… or it will be defined for us.

To be continued…

(Part 2)

Two weeks ago my column was about identity, and how the identity of our county is changing – whether we’re ready or not.  Every place here, to an “outsider,” has at least two names: the name of what that place is now, and at least one name of what that place used to be.  Maybe one day, the Blackwell House will be called the “Clarke House” and people really will call the grocery store “Farmer’s Foods.”  Until then, all those places are “in-between,” just waiting to assume their new identity… just Like Lunenburg County is waiting today.

Lunenburg is in a time of change – that dreaded word that so many of us fear.  And the fact is, change is not something we have to decide “for” or “against.”  It’s inevitable.  Change is a part of life – we’re changing from the moment we’re born, and we don’t stop changing until we die.  So our real question is not, “do we change?” but rather, “what will we do with this change?”

Last time, we looked at biblical characters like Abram, Jacob and Simon – each of whom was given a new name by God.  Even though Simon was renamed Peter – “the Rock” – just a new name was not enough to transform Simon’s very strong character.  If we didn’t know the end of the story, we might be tempted to think of Peter as a weakness in Jesus’ plan, not a strength!

But Jesus knew Peter intimately, and where others might have seen a weakness, Jesus saw hidden strengths.  Others saw stubbornness; Jesus saw the tenacity Peter would need in the face of persecution.  Others saw impulsiveness; Jesus saw a quick mind and an ability to adapt.  Others saw brashness; Jesus saw courage and boldness that would make Peter an effective preacher.  The attributes that made Peter such a strong leader were already present.  Jesus simply gave Simon a new name that reflected the best of the strengths God had given him, and challenged Peter to become the leader God was shaping him to be.

What strengths do we have as a small-town, rural community?  What things can we claim that other counties cannot?  It’s easy to start dwelling on the weaknesses – we’ve lost a lot of industry, and tobacco isn’t what it used to be.  Our economy isn’t as strong as it once was, and poverty is too common (and often overlooked).  And there are still many walls that keep us apart – walls between races, towns, and families.  But if we focus on these things, we’ve missed the strengths that make Lunenburg such a wonderful community!

Several of those strengths come immediately to mind:  Lunenburg, the “Mother of Counties,” has a proud history that no one else can claim.  The “Old Free State” has always had a strong (i.e., “stubborn”) and fiercely independent spirit, ready to go new directions while others lingered behind.  The pace of life here is a refreshing change from the hectic bustle of the city.  The air is clean and clear (most of the time!), and it’s a quiet and safe place to live and to have a family.  I’ve only lived here a little more than two years, and I recognize these strengths; you can probably think of many more.

A new identity for Lunenburg and her towns doesn’t have to be handed down from the capitol building in Richmond.  It doesn’t have to be re-invented from the ground up.  Our new identity is already present, in all the things that make Lunenburg a great place to live, work and worship.

What is that new identity?  I don’t know, but I think God does.  And I think it’s something the citizens of Lunenburg can discover together – if we’re “brash” enough to dream, “impulsive” enough to tear down walls and work together, and “stubborn” enough to endure a few bumps in the road along the way.

Jon Parks is pastor of Kenbridge Baptist Church.  He welcomes your thoughts about these matters, and suggestions for issues to write about in the future.  He can be contacted by email at jon@kenbridgebaptist.org, or by postal mail at P.O. Box 445, Kenbridge, VA 23944.

 Note: I’ve tried to get back to my semi-regular column in the local paper, the K-V Dispatch.  This is the first I’ve done in a while – it appeared in the February 28, 2008 edition.

These past couple of weeks, the news channels have followed a kind of story they don’t focus on very often:  the U.S. Space Program.  Occasional updates have followed the attachment of a new module to the International Space Station, and tests of the shuttle’s heat shield to make sure there won’t be another accident on reentry.  These stories about space are a rarity these days.  It seems like there are so many things to worry about here on the ground that we left behind the idea of space exploration a long time ago.  Occasional stories have caught our attention – the losses of the astronauts of Challenger and Columbia for instance.  But for the most part, save a tragedy, the eyes of the nation toward space discovery are either indifferent, unknowing, or outright hostile.

The hostility is understandable.  In a society that values things and money so highly, and where people and items are usually judged by the amount of their output, it’s easy to understand why people would see spaceflight as a waste of the government’s money.  And in a time of war, the crunch is even tighter.  And so manned spaceflight is rapidly becoming a private venture – taken on either by a few cloistered government workers, or by billionaires enamored of a new hobby.

What does the space program contribute to our world?  Lots, if you’re willing to look into it.  All kinds of inventions – plastics, medicines, new technologies – would not have been possible were it not for the work of scientists in the zero-gravity atmosphere of space.  And we don’t have to look hard to see that we’re going to need help on this planet before too long; New energy sources, modes of transportation, and places to live are all problems that space scientists around the world are working on.

Truth be told, our indifference and hostility toward space are a lack of imagination.  Much like the many naysayers who ridiculed or ignored Columbus’ crazy venture around to this side of the world, we simply can’t imagine (realistically) a world outside our own.  And yet, men and women around the world continue to put their lives on the line, year after year, to continue the slow crawl of progress in spaceflight.  Decades from now, when we’re celebrating our first colony on Mars, when the world has come together to push past Mars because Earth has become crowded and used-up… it’s likely in those days that we won’t pause long to remember the folks who, like Columbus, could imagine what those days would look like and were courageous enough to keep acting on it.

So what does all this have to do with God?  This column is called Speaking of Faith, after all.

Like the men and women involved in space exploration today – wrapped up in the “useless” waste of time and money – we are called on a similarly “foolish” mission.  Here we are, placed in a world that’s not really our home… but one in which it’s sadly too easy to feel comfortable.  And when we start looking at things from a “normal” point of view, we might see our mission as foolish.  Talk about good news in a world filled with all this mess?  Help out the poor when there are too many to count?  Work for justice for people who don’t speak our language?  Live as if God were real and made a difference in our lives?  That just sounds crazy!  And it’s close to impossible!

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18.  And not just to them – sometimes it’s foolish to us, too.  But fortunately, “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (v. 25), and this foolishness is the very power that saves us… and that will one day make our world brand new.

Why stick with this foolish Gospel?  Why keep risking our lives in space?  Why sail around the other side of the world?  Let’s live with holy imagination, like explorers who can see things that others can’t see.  We might just turn out to be right after all.