Month: May 2020

On the Day My Daughter and I…

/ vchininin / Leave a comment

Victor Chininin Buele

Shortly after moving to Johnson County, Kansas, it became clear to us that our phones were not working very well.  In the process of figuring this out, one day my daughter and I walked into a very special place.

I very soon realized I must not have looked like I fit there because nobody said hello or helped me.  My daughter and I left without buying a phone from such a slick place.  I realized what may have happened.  I was wearing a Mexican soccer jersey and old jean shorts.  She was wearing play clothes and non-matching shoes.  Her hair was unkept.

When I came to the United States, almost twenty years ago, I made two “promises” to myself in an attempt to survive the cultural change: (1) I was never going to allow myself to be homesick, and (2) I was never going to allow myself to participate in self-racisim.

You can see my delusion of godness there thinking I had more control over things than I did in reality.

Addressing homesickness came because I observed these big plans of my fellow Lojanos to go to big places, but very shortly thereafter, I would see them back in the streets of Loja with dreams unfulfilled.  My 17-year-old self was too proud, too selfish, and the wrong kind of ambitious to desire against all obstacles to avoid going back to Loja.  But what about the self-racism promise?

My 17-year-old self developed this theory that it takes two to tango.  If I would refuse to see myself as fundamentally different than the rest of the U.S. population, no matter what other people would think about me, I would not be contributing to the development, brooding, and systematization of racism.

In other words, I banked the foundation of my survival in America in this–that a white person may choose to look at me as whatever they would want to look at me, but I would not reciprocate that by acknowledging it, fearing it, acting differently because of it, living up to any stereotypes, or changing my plans because of what they may say, think, or do.  In other words, this was self-esteem on steroids.

And as one of the very, very, very few Hispanics in Nodaway County, Missouri, back then, there were far more than a handful of interesting encounters that would have crushed my soul had I not had this front up the whole time. And wearing this mask was exhausting, I must confess.

Yet, none of these encounters threatened my life. They are actually pretty comical in retrospective. Beside the usual high school mockery and sidelining, a few strange questions about whether we have cars in Ecuador, a date asking me if Ecuador was in Texas, none of these things put my life in danger.

Most of my life in the United States I have lived as a coconut, which is how they would call it in that Netflix show Gentified. Brown in the outside. White in the inside. And in God’s kindness of His providence to me, He has shown me a glimpse of another world I had always succeeded in avoiding. White/brown relations were always very simple for me because I‘ve had the means to live mostly as a white person. There are only a couple of places where I’ve really felt out of place–Monroe County, Illinois, and Johnson County, Kansas.

Yet, in the last four years, a number of strange incidents have continued to occur where I’ve been seen and treated differently. And also, in God’s kind providence, we have discovered the joys and challenges of gathering with the saints in a Spanish speaking immigrant church. We’ve edged towards a different circle of influence, and we’ve felt and seen different things than before.

I was only partly right as a teenager, imagine that—yes, I can compound the problem by responding to racism, which is a real problem, and to systemic inequality, which is a real thing, by making my identity largely a response to real and perceived racism. My identity is not founded in this, and it cannot be. If it were, it would be soul crushing. What I did not account for and what I was largely blind to as a result of living in different socioeconomic circles than the majority of Latinos is that racism dos remain a big sin in our country, a very real struggle, and a foundational roadblock for peace. And the King of Kings specializes in the solution for this sort of thing.

Donald Trump did not create racism. He is an opportunist who has leveraged sin in people’s hearts to rise to power and try to hold on to it. That’s what he does. And it is vile. But if we didn’t love it, if we didn’t desire that sin, we would not fall for it. The racism in our hearts must be put to death.

We have to deal with our sin.

There is no other way. We can keep putting it off and only make it worse. It’s time to wake up and really get woke. Not as the popular use of such a term but as in “I have my eyes open, what must I do to be awakened to this? What must I do to be saved?”

First Peter 2:11: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” We wouldn’t be racists is we didn’t have this passion inside our flesh for it. We wouldn’t be entitled looters if we didn’t have this passion for entitlement inside our flesh for it. If we don’t love it, we don’t fall for it.

We have to face the evil desires within ourselves. We must put that sin to death. We, minorities, must destroy the sin within our hearts. The traditionally not thought of as minorities who are becoming the minority, must destroy the sin within their hearts. We are both a very entitled people. We demand to have. We are envious. We hold grudges and are not quick to repent. We loot and set things on fire. We play the victim. We oppress, we abuse, we victimize. We do not foster opportunities for true advancement of those who don’t look like us. We do not make it a point to actually incarnate, to pitch a tent and live among those who do not look like us. We do not make any efforts to truly understand those who are different than us: What is their plight, what is their sorrow, what is their joy?

In short, by becoming more like the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, we can put to death these sins that are destroying us. This is not a mere call to “act like a Christian” or to “do Christian things.” The gospel is not about mere behavioral change, but it is about a radical transformation of the heart that only God can bring about. A man being turned into the image of Christ will be made more and more like Him every day—every day the sin within the heart that leads to murder, to abuse, to looting, to rage will be put to death a little bit more.

It is time to seek the Lord while He may be found and heal this land.

There is no other way. We keep trying what looks like other paths. And here we are again, it’s not even June of 2020, and the sad story repeats itself. George Floyd is the name today. Will you wait until it is your name to turn and seek Christ?

On Sheep and Mediators

/ vchininin / Leave a comment

Victor Chininin Buele 

What a season! One of the first things I ran into today was a man saying on Instagram that he wasn’t a [you can imagine what wonderful expletive was use]ing sheep.

But I am a sheep, I said to myself. I am. And so are you, “Costco Kevin.” And so is Tison.

Why should you consider what I am sharing with you? I have seen a further escalation of our polarization—new adjectives we can use to distinguish ourselves from others, I should say.  “Mask wearers” are sheep, I’ve read, since I must highlight that we don’t actually talk to one another like this. We let memes do the work. It is easier.

Living in a pluralistic society is very difficult. We have been pretending for quite some time that it isn’t, but it is. It requires listening, speaking civilly, articulating our ideas clearly, having grace when we and others aren’t clear, patience when trying to express ourselves again, grace to overlook minor offenses, and a ton of other things we do not have time to address. It requires humility, and that is not our strongest gifting in America.

On the last post, I was saying, in Spanish, that moments like this novel coronavirus pandemic crisis reveal our faith and by revealing it, this crisis clarifies the definition of our generation’s faith.  It’s not that we don’t have faith.  We have just as much faith as Fundamentalists of old or as the sun worshipers of the ancient Incan empire. We are sheep.

Our cultural faith is a very deep faith in ourselves. And that’s backfiring bigly. Or should we say big league? I am not sure anybody can agree to what it is that the President actually says anyway.  And that’s part of the point. In the post I said that we have a tendency to make an omelet with our faith. But that doesn’t translate super well. The best analogy I can find in English is a steamroller. We want a steamroller faith.

We have a profound faith in ourselves. Blind faith. Unquestionable faith. Unshakable faith. A steamroller faith. We can and will get through this.

Sometimes we hide this faith of ours in Christianity, secularism, atheism, conservative values, morality, equality,  public opinion polls, liberal values, rights. You get the point. What I’m saying is that the collective American faith is out, exposed and in shambles. We are most definitely not watching after each other. From the man behind the resolute desk watching out for his reelection to my procrastination to write this because I after all do care inordinately about what you think about me, we are all watching after ourselves. We are insufficient for this thing. We are sheep, and we keep shouting at others that we aren’t. We want what we want. We want to not wear masks. We want to wear masks. We want to be free. We want to be healthy. But before we get too far, I do see glimpses of hope here and there of some who are showing a disposition to think of others first, to think of others as more significant than themselves as Paul exhorts us to do in Philippians 2 based on the example of Jesus.

I am frankly amused that a public health matter has taken such tones. My musical brain takes me to the wonderful seats of Powell Hall in St. Louis, remembering the STL Symphony and the choir singing from Handel’s Messiah that we like sheep have gone astray, which is nothing more than Isaiah 53 put to song:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6 ESV).

We are sheep. It is not a pleasant description. I think it’s good that it offends people because we need to understand that Holy Scripture does not show us in a very favorable light with such an accurate and appropriate description. Yes, we are also made in the image of God and are privileged with great worth and value because of that kind gift bestowed to us. But sheep are dumb, they follow the crowd, they do not think, their vision is fascinating and powerful yet they miss what’s right in front of their noses, they lack depth perception. Sheep are easily led astray by wolves. It matters infinitely if the sheep is being watched by a shepherd or by a thief:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. – John 10:1-15

Sheep find it easy to make mediators for themselves to hide the difficulty of life.  Don’t. Don’t swallow whole what your mediator of choice gives to you.  The research on masks is not straightforward, the research on COVID-19 is all over the place, government officers have been tripping all over it and making contradicting and contradictory claims and decisions. We simply don’t know. It may be that wearing a mask is a greater danger than not wearing it. Perhaps, perhaps not. I have followed the evidence closely from many sources, not just from a central mediator. I have made choices for my family and for myself. I trust in God and in His wisdom. Some Christians will think I am living in fear. Some Christians will think I am too liberal or too lose.

We want to have somebody to tell us what to do and to have that match perfectly with what we want to do. That is what going astray like sheep means.

It matters infinitely who our shepherd is. All man shepherds will ultimately fail us. Trump, scientists, pastors, talking heads, politicians, governors, the media, those who say not to be the media but are, WND, CNN, Fox.  They will all fail us.

Here is what I long for. I long for the gospel to sweep over our sick land and give us a renewal, a fresh start, the end of our sad divisions. That those who have found a love for life and a desire to defend life will let that go all the way to all it’s necessary implications even if they require a death—the death of their own self-interest. That those who have found a love for what is thought of by them as holiness but is really self-righteousness will let that go all the way and let Christ transform them with a profound sense of compassion of tireless dedication to love others well, to truly love them. That those who have a passion for freedom would work and pray ceaselessly for true freedom to be found in Jesus for themselves and those they long to make free.

There is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We can either waste this pandemic fighting over masks and rights and shooting and shouting at each other, or we can surrender, pick up our cross, and seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and find true joy, a joy that does not require mediators through faith in a Shepherd that will never let us down and will truly protect us whether COVID-19 kills us or not, whether it came from a bat or from a lab, whether we see our false dilemmas and faulty logic or not, whether we look like we are right or not. In the end, we can know the One who is Right

It is grace. Turn your eyes to the Shepherd.