Limbo

William Blake [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Limbo is not a concept in Protestantism; yet often do we live there, at least this side of heaven.

As a Christian, the notion of ‘call’, of God leading and directing us to a particular path, of waiting to hear God clearly, of discerning that it is God’s voice and not my own or the voice of others, is steeped deep in my bones.

I have been called before to work in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and have been to Iraq with CPT for roughly two-month stints from 2005-2010.  I did not go this year, mostly because I have been ambivalent about whether I am still called.

How do we know when God calls?  Even more, how do we know when God stops calling?  I wish I knew.

What follows is a random part of my own thought-process when I met an Iraqi woman this summer at the PC(USA) Big Tent event in Indianapolis.

***

Fi kelbee, anni Iraqiya.

It’s a phrase I haven’t said in a long time . . .

“In my heart, I am an Iraqi.”

As I meet Martha at the Big Tent gathering, she is introduced for her work with refugees in California.  The man who introduced us surprisingly says to Martha (about me), “She’s Iraqi.”

Martha, a Middle Eastern woman, looks at me with frank surprise.  I grin and say, “Anni Iraqiya, fi kelbee." [“I am an Iraqi, in my heart.”]

We both laugh, exchange pleasantries and basic information, and move on.

Yet the phrase hangs with me.

Am I?

Is it still true that I feel this affinity for the people of Iraq?  I think so.  But what am I going to do about it?

I haven’t been since the winter of 2010.

“What have you done for me lately” isn’t just asked by sports figures looking for the better deal (watch the movie Jerry MacGuire if you don’t get the reference).

It is a fair question for people caught in all sorts of webs to ask of those who would help them or walk alongside them as they endeavor to help themselves.

Kurdish Iraqis not allowed to vote in 2009

“What have you done for me lately?”

No one is asking me this question, at least not in person, face to face.

But I still hear the question ringing in my ears.

Will I go back?  I do not know.

What am I waiting for?  I do not know.

Do I feel the pull?  I do.

Am I exhausted by the implied rejection of the work I do in Iraq from family, friends and congregants?  I am.

Is it their ‘fault’ I haven’t gone back?  No.

What am I waiting for?

I do not know.

***

God’s voice has never boomed from the sky for me, but I have never before had such a sense of unknowing.

Limbo.  It’s a place I don’t like living in much.

From the Big Tent: Networking with Len

Here I am, at the Big Tent, the gathering of a multitude of ministries within the Presbyterian Church, sitting in a meeting for the Iraq Peace Network.  We’ve moved from hearing directly from an Iraqi partner to hearing more about the work we’re doing in the U.S. and the mechanisms by which we will do it.

One of the buzz words is ‘networking’.  Well, it is in our name.

How do we network?  How do we network better?  What does our networking ‘bring to the table’?

I have nothing to offer.

But here is what I do know; and I think it might be all I do know about networking.  Maybe it is enough.

When I began to learn about Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), the peace group I go to Iraq with, I was attending Princeton, a Presbyterian seminary.  I was a member of a Presbyterian church back home in West Virginia.  I belonged to a group at seminary called Princeton Seminarians for Peace.  I was ‘under care’ of the Presbytery of West Virginia.

I thought I was pretty well hooked into my church.

Until one day when I was preparing to go to Iraq for the first time and the phone rang.

There was a man on the other end of the line, who identified himself as Len Bjorkman.  Len introduced himself as being a part of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.  I was surprised.  I didn’t know there was such a thing.

Then he gob-smacked me, “The reason I’m calling is that I heard you’re going to Iraq with CPT.  And I just wanted to touch base with you and introduce myself and see how you were doing.”

Outside of CPT, Len is the only fellow Christian who reached out to me as I prepared to go to Iraq for the first time.  Until that phone call where Len introduced himself to me, it never occurred to me that other people might be interested in what I was doing; might pray for me even though they didn’t know me; might care about what might happen to me.

Len wasn’t done with surprises: after we talked for a time, he asked me who would be checking in with my mom.  This is after we had established that I was living with her at the time.  Len, with a pastor’s keen ear, identified the person closest to me and asked about who would be taking care of her.  And while I would be gone, every now and again, Len called my mom.

Len Bjorkman is a born networker, which is just another way of saying that Len and his wife Judy think about people and reach out to them and make connections between what they’re doing and what others might be doing; and they work hard to connect all those dots.

I have visited with Len and Judy in their home, done a speaking tour that Len organized, done a few workshops/conversations at General Assembly at Len’s behest, helped Len usher an overture (fancy name for a certain kind of motion) about Iraq through a committee process, and come to the Big Tent early for the Iraqi Peace Network, all because this kind man has bid me come.

Want to know how to network?  Call someone who might have something to offer and introduce yourself.  Call Len.