The Egg Ceremony

Many of you know that I was involved in a traumatic event two weeks ago along with two colleagues.
It is only by the grace of God that we are alive today.

We received many signs of kindness since then to help us process what we had experienced.

On Friday a week ago, one of the language communities that we are working with, the Nghwla (Mbatto) held a special "Egg Ceremony" for us, something they do for people who have narrowly escaped death.

We were each given a hard boiled egg.

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I held the egg in my hand thoughtfully as she explained that it represents the new life we have been given. 

What ceremony happens without ritual phrases?  In this case, "Here is your white chicken without feathers" (egg). This was said first in French, but then in Nghwla.  There may be some significance to it that escapes me. 

As you might imagine, the next step was to shell the egg and eat it, or should I say "partake".

But we also had to take a bit of the yolk and smear it on our foreheads. A sign, I suppose, that we had been marked by this event, forever changed. 

First time I have ever had "egg on my face" and been glad about it.

The final bit of the ceremony was the gift of a second, raw egg, to take home and cook. 

I had mine for lunch. Since I wanted an omelette, I added it to an egg I had had in the fridge from before - and that seemed strangely appropriate, mixing the life before with the new life after. 

This was truly a remarkable gift that was given to us, to help us process and mark this important passage. 

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How interesting that God would use something from the richness of another culture to minister to me, to fill a slot that we don't even know is missing in our culture. 

Ceremonies and rituals are interesting, aren't they? 

There are commonalities from culture to culture. They may differ in form, but they exist for similar things: births, name givings, rites of passage, religious initiation, dedication and inaugurations, weddings, funerals. 

There are always others present to witness it. You can't have a ceremony by yourself. 

And there are always words said in formulaic ways. If you get those wrong, it will have to be redone.

But isn't it wonderful that there are also physical elements present, symbols to tie what is happening relationally and spiritually to our physical existence, to make it memorable. 

• Colors: White wedding dresses, black clothes at funerals, red and green at Christmas, pastel purples and Yellows and pinks at Easter.
• Sounds: Bells, choirs, music, dancing
• Clothes: coordinated, and colorful and out of the ordinary. 
• Symbols: rings, lighting of candles,  water, wine, bread, oil or ashes on the forehead  or egg,
• Physical contact and actions: water of baptism, cutting of hair, holding hands, partaking wine or bread or egg

The symbols will be different from culture to culture, but in every case, it's not enough to just be together and say the right things without the other symbolic and physical elements. You can't have Eucharist or communion without partaking some sort of bread and either wine or juice. You can't have a wedding without a ring.

God plants our spirits and souls into bodies. And we have ceremonies and rituals to help ground important events into our physical existence. 

We were debriefed last week after our trauma and they told us that our mind, spirit and emotions would need time to process everything that would be out of sync with our bodies,  which were physically fine but our brains did not know it yet. As a result, we experience various physical symptoms that reflect our emotional distress. 

Thanks to God for helping people to create ceremonies to join the spiritual to the physical, and to the Nghwla for sharing their ceremony with us!

Thrown Down, but not Broken

On the Saturday after Good Friday, the disciples were locked in the upper room. Fearing for their lives.
Even on Easter Sunday, after a few of them had seen and believe, they were still uncertain of what it all meant and returned to the upper room and locked the door.

John 20: 19 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said

Up until that point, I imagine they were solidly fixed in the left hand column of this verse (2 Cor 4:8-9)

     We are pressed on every side by troubles,                     but we are not crushed. 
     We are perplexed,                                                             but not driven to despair. 
     We are hunted down,                                                       but never abandoned by God. 
     We get knocked down,                                                     but we are not destroyed.

Then Jesus came and declared himself to be the Prince of Peace. He is the one that works all those red things in the left column into the green things on the right, in his time, and through his body.

I recently experience some major trauma and initially this verse rang fairly hollow, because I did fell pretty crushed and abandoned and knocked down.

Easter is the message of hope, that God MEETS US in the darkest of places and shines light in.
As it says in the Message "What Jesus did among them, he does in us -- He LIVES!

Sloth and Those who hunger for a life made right

(First published) March 10, 2010 at 6:12pm

I just came across this book review I posted to Facebook 6 years ago today. I didn't have my blog then, I think i will repost it here.

I'm reading the book "Seven: The deadly sins and the beatitudes" by Jeff Cook.

He pairs up the 7 deadly sins with the beatitudes saying they are flip sides of each other:

• Pride vs the Poor in Spirit
• Envy vs the Mourner
• Greed vs the Mercy Giver
• Sloth vs Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness

The chapter on sloth is really good.
Some quotes:

"At its core, sloth moves us away from everything that ultimately matters and directs us toward simple distractions. Sloth is not mere laziness. Sloth is indifference toward my soul, my neighbors, my world, or my God. Drug users, TiVo Addicts, ... may be poisoned by sloth, but so are most workaholics. Sloth is not restfulness. Sloth is escapism of the deadly sort."

p. 69: "Slot is best expressed not by a lazy attitude but by zeal over petty matters. . . A heart at once so sensitive to minor things and so strangely insensitive to the greatest."

p. 79 Sloth is very western. Despite our fast-moving society, we "invest our energies and talents most often in what is trivial." "Sloth is content to aim us toward either apathy or fanaticism. All that matters is that the target is worthless".

Cook looks at the Parable of the Talents. The unfaithful servant BURIED his master's talent, showing him what he thought of the master and his pursuits. "They were dead to him".

On the other hand, the faithful servants were invited to "Come and Share in their master's happiness" which was NOT what masters did with slaves in that time. Pretty radical.

Similarly, the Parable of the Wedding Feast has the king inviting people to this feast but throwing out one man who was poorly dressed. Why? Because he was too lazy to dress for the wonderful occasion. To stay inside with the king, you had to be passionate about the king's concerns.

In both parables, Jesus pairs the slothful activity with hell.

"The blessed are passionate about what really matters - the image of God in those around them." P. 73.

Cook next talks about the Tower of Babel, wherein men were trying to escape the world. Instead, we see God always "longs to enter our sphere and make his home with us.". The parallel story to the Tower of Babel is Pentecost when God came and filled the house and then filled the believers. "The movement of God is to fill. While at Babel the people want to escape the world, at Pentecost God entered it." p. 76

On to the beatitude:

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled". We need to be STARVING for God. Note the prodigal son. He did not return because he wanted a relationship but because he was starving.

Jesus was not addressing those who have all their "junk in order" but those with "wrecked moral lives." So wrecked, in fact, that he associated their pain with starvation." (p. 80)

"Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - who hobble along with deep aches, who press on through difficulty, knowing a fire and a meal are waiting - will be blessed by God, for he has the power to fill them." (p. 80-81)

"Sloth - indifference towards our souls - alone will keep us from the life we were made for. Sloth will praise the ruts we dig... but it is all a lie. We are made to overflow with life." "God is moving you and me from places where our lives are foul into realms of refreshment.. . He is slowly cutting away the gangrene. . . . We have nothing to hold onto but a promise as we endure surgery. . . . But the promise is beautiful. You will be made whole. You will be filled and your fullness will overflow everywhere." p. 81Lots of food for thought for a hungry man. :-)