Author: vchininin

“Go Home, Deplorable”–Notes on Why Am I, Then, An American Citizen?

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Victor Chininin Buele

We were driving down one of the main streets in St. Louis the other day with my wife and children.  I will tell you later more about the circumstances surrounding what happened. But for now I just want to say that somebody shouted at my wife.  This older lady yelled at my wife with all the passion she could find within her.  She said to her, “Go home, deplorable.”  So, I started having what I’m calling my buyer’s remorse about being a United States citizen.  I found myself earlier this week high above Chicago at the Federal Building applying for my U.S. passport, and as I overlooked the most important city in my state, the question kept bothering me, “Why am I, then, an American citizen?”

There are so many things to be thankful for.  A while back, my pastor asked us to be more thankful.  So, I start our meals at home asking the children and my wife a simple question–what are you thankful for?  So, I ask myself the same question now in light of my bigger question.

I am thankful for a grandmother who sold the work of her old age after being left destitute to give me the money to start my adventure in the United States.  You probably don’t have a context to understand this, but this most honorable woman did work most of us would never do to urbanize a section of Loja so that many people could have a place to live.  She never got to build anything in that land.  Years of backbreaking labor.  She sold it.  For me. And that’s just the icing on the cake.  If I were to tell you all she has done, this would be a whole book.

I am thankful for a grandfather who taught me to read and to think even now that I don’t remember much about him.  He died when I was only five.  But somehow it’s as if he has always been there.

I am thankful for a father who always cared that I would know how to think and that I would know what the Ecuadorians and the Americans and the Soviets were thinking.  He didn’t want me to just swallow what others said.  He wanted me to know. I’m thankful for the many times he carried me in his shoulders home when I should have been walking. I’m thankful for the times he took me out to play soccer while still wearing his black dress shoes.  I’m thankful for how he would train me to go to the army school.  I still remember the first time I ran 2 kilometers in preparation for the admission test.  Instead of discouraging me for being like 30 minutes past the required time, he never stopped encouraging me.  I remember seeing his face when we went downtown Loja to call Monterrey asking for the cost of a life-saving surgery for my sister.  I remember seeing in his face both the desperation of knowing we could never pay for it and the courage to say that one way or another we would make it happen.

I am thankful for a mother who nourished me into life in the midst of great difficulty and sorrow.  I am thankful for the way she has bravely cared for and protected me.  I am thankful for how she taught me to never take no for an answer. I am thankful for how she let me come to the United States without a big speech about all the dangers that I could have easily fallen for.  She just let me go.  When I see the pictures of the Ecuadorian mothers letting their children go out of the country in the late 1990’s, I see what my mother must have hid in her heart from my eyes–that deep sorrow of the surrender of a son to the unknown.  Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it can bear no fruit. I am thankful for the watch she bought me–which I still wear–back in 1991 with six months of her work.  She worked a special project at the university, and she took me to the corner of Bolívar and Colón St. and bought me that watch, the watch that has been with me ever since through the shameful moments in army training, through life in America, my adventures for work in the Americas and Asia.

I am thankful for an aunt who bore so much of the care and responsibilities of my childhood.  I am thankful for the little car and the little cat toys, for the Smurfs outfit to turn around a sad birthday long ago.  I am thankful for the ways she taught me I shouldn’t be careless in speaking in public.  I am thankful for the way she would tell me that we could do much more than we dared to think or imagine as we would walk on Quito Street from the hospital to our rented apartment.  I am thankful that she never let me drown in the sinking sand of obstacles–she always encouraged me to find a better way.  Upon defeat she would encourage me to remember that it is about endurance, not about speed. Little did we know how important that lesson would be for life in the Kingdom.

I am thankful for two sisters.  Analí was the gift of God that changed our lives forever, and I am ever so thankful for her.  I am thankful for the way she is living proof of joy in the midst of unbelievable suffering, living proof that God works wonders, marvelous wonders, in the things we as humans really do deem impossible.  I am thankful for every day of her life–a living testimony that what is impossible for man is really not all that impossible in light of greater things.  Anita is not really my sister as you know, but we have said so many times that she is, that she is.  She really is.  She has been by my side one way or another since the moment she was born.  She has been the victim of my get-rich-quick childhood money schemes, my official-sounding fake FIFA soccer rules always to my favor, and my not-so-honest bigger half schemes.

And then we get to America.  I remember running through the Houston airport, desperately looking for gate C-15, lost as I could be, unable to really communicate.  I remember getting to Kansas City International Airport in the middle of the summer heat wearing a flannel long sleeve shirt and black, wool pants.

I am thankful for the generosity of so many.  Space will fail me to recognize them all. People who had no opportunity to profit from interacting with me gladly and abundantly overflowed my life with kindness, smiles, food, money, places to stay, encouragement, wisdom, direction (and directions), recommendation letters, English lessons, life lessons, American slang and cultural crash courses, enchiladas (thinking that would make me feel more welcome).

I am thankful for those two special band teachers.  Those who didn’t see a kid way over his head without a home but opened their basement room to me.  Those who emptied their little girl’s dresser drawers so that I may have a place to put my clothes on.  Those who fed me when I had no possible way to repay them.  He who wrote to the school board fighting for me.  He who faced teachers for me.  She who learned to be very patient with me.  She who did everything for me even when her plate was so full not just of things to do but also of difficulty and heartbreak.  They gave me the honor and the privilege of calling them my mom and dad.  And so they became.  And so they are.  I rode the bicycle they provided for me.  I still sit on the couch they gave to me.  I am ever so thankful for him pushing me to read that Harry Potter book.  You see, I was so ashamed that I couldn’t read and type as fast as I did in Spanish.  I’m thankful that they let me sit in their basement for hours using the old typewriter sending applications for admission and scholarships to anyone who would take them.  And I gained the most wonderful sister–who was the first one to publicly point out that I do have a big nose–and the two brothers I never had.  I’m thankful for what God has allowed me to see in their lives and the lives of our extended family.  I became an Ecuadorian man with Iowa and Nebraska roots.  A lover of apple pie.

And I could go on and on.

I am thankful for the man who wrote a business case that would ultimately give me the opportunity of my life.

I am thankful for the tall man who taught me what tolerance and freedom are.  That he let me put my idols on display and follow my foolish heart.  But he who also spoke with great kindness and power the message that transformed my life and made me truly rich.

You see, I came to America to become rich.  I came to America to overcome so much.

But I am not rich.  At least not the way Donald J. is.  Or appears to be.

Yet I am far richer than I ever dreamed of.  I am a citizen of heaven.  I get the joy of working with people from all over the work every day from my little corner of the world in Southern Illinois.  I get the joy of traveling to distant places to bless them through my work, to show them the works Jesus prepared for me to do.  I get the joy of pastoring a church and living life with those under my care–the joys and the sorrows, the pain and the struggle, the conflict and the peace.  All in Jesus.

So, how can I have buyer’s remorse?  I had asked the question looking out of the window. And the next thing I read in my book was part of the story of Tom Carson, a pastor in Quebec.  His son had asked him why he was staying in a place where he was seeing so little fruit.  His response was simple.  “I stay because I believe God has many people in this place.”

So even as somebody who does not know me or my wife and calls her a deplorable, I choose to stay.

I choose to stay because a fellow American born in Somalia invited me for lunch after knowing me only for 15 minutes while waiting at the passport office.  I choose to stay because when we choose to put flesh to our ideas things can only get better.  I choose to stay because the message of the gospel is the only hope and the only truth that can truly revitalize and revolutionize our nation.  I choose to stay because though I may be thought as the dumbest and most ignorant, I know that if you would love me and allow me to love you, you would get to see the love of Jesus, even in my moments of sin or anger, frustration or backsliding.  And I know that God has many people in this place.  So many of them welcomed me, the stranger, with open arms and open wallets.  I have slept in places where the only payment the host would expect is that payment of the Hospitable One saying to them one day yet in the future, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

You see, we are living in the most exciting time in American life.  We could either go down the cliff at an accelerated speed towards our own collective stupidity.  Or we could run to the cross and see the power of God set a light burning through our country and its people.

The story of the gospel is after all the story of what America has been to me–the outsider is brought in, adopted, despite being without merits of his own and without any hope of being able to afford the payment for the sheer goodness dumped on him.  Lavish grace.

The story of the gospel is after all the story of what this nation is supposed to embody – E Pluribus Unum, out of many one.  If you ever question whether the New Heavens and the New Earth will be glorious, I invite you to go to the passport office.  We are not all alike. We are so different.  Yet we are one.  That’s a Trinitarian reflection.  And it would make no sense without God.

The story of the gospel is after all the story of surrender and death.  Death of self so that others may live.

The story of the gospel is after all the story of God’s sovereign grace–He who called us is faithful.  He will surely do it.

I am an American citizen because this is also my home.  And I want to seek its welfare. And I want to bless as I have been blessed.  And I want to give as much as been given to me. To whom much is given, of him MUCH is expected.

Undeniable

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A crowd is formed and a deception born
Beholden to gods all pleasing to self
Saving the whales as the humans are torn
Overdosing with what’s found on the shelf
Lying, dishonored, unquenchable lust
Utter denial of the caused sorrow
Thinking themselves wise and God a disgust
Evolved today, but dust by tomorrow

Timeless authority, unmoved by fads
Refusing to cower, argue, or bend
Unwavering Love’s promise ironclad
Taken face value beginning to end
His Word alone is sufficient to mend

-Angela Chininin Buele

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

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Victor Chininin Buele

A very dear and good friend and colleague wrote something on Facebook about the President’s admission ban to the citizens of seven countries. Seeing his words gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts on the subject and stop delaying this article. It has been bothering me for the better part of fifteen years. The world did change after 9/11. And I have felt it to the core.

This is an expansion of my already long comment left on my friend’s Facebook wall.

Historical Survey

Two quick points on this:

  1.  John Calvin welcomed a significant number of persecuted refugees to Geneva.  He helped them get established and gave them work to do in transforming the culture and reforming the church. You are entitled to your opinion about this colorful Christian. But he was indeed a Christian who loved Jesus. For more information on this, I refer you to the book Calvin and Commerce by David Hall.
  2. The Israelites of the Old Testament were given what we would call today visas by the Egyptians. The archeological evidence for this is presented in James Hoffmeier’s The Immigration Crisis. And besides that, the Old Testament is full of references to aliens and sojourners.

The Immigrant Story

It is going to be fifteen and a half years since I came to the United States on the day of my oath of citizenship ceremony. I know what it feels like to be humiliated by consular and USCIS interviews from diligent officers protecting the border and the homeland.  I know what it feels like to be assumed guilty unless proven innocent. When is the last time you went to Aruba on vacation and needed to think about taking with you a pay stub, an employment letter, and whatever else you can foresee an immigration officer ask you to let you back in?  I know what it is to have your grandmother, who sold the work of her life to pay for part of your education, be denied a visa to attend your graduation. I know what it is to beg until she was given a fifteen day visa, lest she were to overstay. I know what it is like to have your beloved sister be denied admission and not attend your wedding even though the consular officer knew that a legally-admitted immigrant and his U.S. citizen fiancée would be hosting and responsible for her.

And as sad and mopey as this may sound, this does not even come close to what my persecuted Christian brothers and sisters face today at the hands of oppressors, what was faced by fellow legal permanent residents at airports yesterday.

The Goal of Terrorism

The goal of terrorism is to disturb the balance of all normal life—it is for “us” to fear everyone, everywhere, all the time. The next sleeper cell could be your next door neighbor. White, middle-class, seemingly honest for decades. At your own child’s birthday party.

There is no foolproof way to search inside the human heart and iSadie a label “terrorist” or not. Only God is sovereign like that. No immigration system will ever be able to fully discover and eradicate evil.

A balance between protection and open generosity is required. Every government is to protect its people–to reward what is good and to deal with what is evil.  I don’t propose that welcoming refugees and immigrants would require any government to be foolish with open doors policies without any vetting, but this consequence of the fall of our world is also not to be used as an excuse for illogically, irrationally, uncharitably express fear-producing division. From whom much is given much is expected. A legal permanent resident should never be detained without having committed a crime. Period. Love your neighbor is the cry of your soul whether you believe the carpenter of Nazareth is a figment of my imagination or the Lord of All.

The Goal of Christianity

The whole point of the Christian faith is that the redeemed citizens of heaven are sojourners, legal aliens, so to speak, of this world today and a part of its cultural transformation. Mike Bull summarizes what must be our balance between this world and the next as follows–“We must not be so heavenly-minded that we retreat from this world nor so earthly-minded that we are disqualified from God’s blessing.”  We are indeed citizens of two worlds, looking forward to the new world and seeing that as motivation to work without ceasing in the renewal of all things today.

The point of the gospel breaks when we give in to fear that everyone who looks different than us will kill us. Christian, this is nothing else but a denial of God’s sovereignty and justice and power and love. This is also a denial that the gospel has changed hearts throughout history and will continue to change hearts. God has promised so, and so it shall come to pass.

The Bible is full of “Fear not!” statements. If you are afraid, know that Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. Turn to Him, rely on Him, work heartily knowing He runs over all.

Therefore, anyone who openly and kindly and generously shares the gospel of Jesus Christ with his neighbor–refugee, immigrant or not– outdoing others, including the government, in showing hospitality, care, food, and the good news of His death and resurrection, can actually be an instrument of radical transformation in the life of a human being. It’s such shortsightedness to think otherwise!

The gospel calls the Christian to go to all the world, but when He brings the world to us, people lack the faith to believe that Jesus can change the heart of even an ISIS fighter ready to pull a trigger. That Love can’t melt the heart of stone.  

And if you say that this doesn’t make sense because “their” goal is to secretly infiltrate all things and then blow us up, let me assure you that I am aware of that counter argument.  But, do you believe in a more powerful gospel than even that extreme?  Or have you not realized that this was precisely Jesus’s point?  We love the phrase “Good Samaritan.” Go think about what’s behind that phrase. Go and be a neighbor. An excellent one. Tell people about the one who told us that the gospel of the kingdom will be like leaven that will take over the world and restore it to what it was always intended to be.  No more ISIS. No more humiliation. No more persecution. No more tears. No more sorrow. Jesus reigns and shall reign.

And YOU, my dear Christian reader, are the frontline of Homeland Security. Your neighbor needs to be radically loved by you.  Have you welcomed him and told him the good news?

A Woman’s Choice

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Angela Chininin Buele

Wonder personified—
The touch, the look, the wit
Glory, fascination
Heart and body did fit

A new life has begun
Made from her and from him
Yet formed by Another
Not by chance or a whim

Divine stroke—and now three,
Made all in same fashion
A single voice cried out
Supremacy, its passion

The claim—a threat was made
To life, joy, position
The offender, now silenced
In fragile condition

The rebel Court of man
Has already spoken
Four decades of silenced
Testimony unbroken

The choice unnatural
To let live or make die
The Authority stolen,
The True Maker denied

March for all to have life
Call for weeping and prayer
For no law of mankind
Can grow love in fields bare

The One who fills with breath
Sight must give to blind eyes
To receive and rejoice
At this gift of small size

The Choice of the Father,
Christ, gave all to save man
Did He not choose mothers
To love the child unplanned?

Facing the Fight Ahead

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Angela Chininin Buele

The presidential campaign of 2016 was a no-holds-barred down and dirty battle.  Then there were public outrage, organized protests, a wide range of threats, public appeals for upsetting the Electoral College, and just today vandalism in the streets of D.C. in protest of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

So who really won?  Maybe no one.  Those who believed that Democrats would offer hope might be disillusioned by the new makeup in the Executive and Legislative Branches.  Those who believed that Republicans (or Donald Trump specifically) would offer hope are seeing that these changes have already caused lots of conflict and complication.

I didn’t champion either of the final candidates in the race, and I imagine that the new administration will seek to accomplish some goals of which I approve and others of which I would not.  The good news is that my hope has never been tied to political leaders or action.  I know that the King of Kings is the Creator and rightful ruler of the whole world, not just this country, and He is coming to set all things right.

Though I am but one person, I have been convicted of my important role in this next political cycle.  I pledge to faithfully pray for the Lord God to plant His Word and His will deep in the hearts of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

I also want to make a specific impact on the general population.  I have come to see that the fog of social media has had an unsavory effect on our public use of free speech.  I want to commit to the standard of Ephesians 4:29, which says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  So when the fight gets feisty, I will refuse to pick up the weapon of insult and instead reach for the edifying tool of the Word and speak (or write) it in love.  Some still might not like it, but my goal will be to make sure you know that the Enemy against whom I fight is Satan, the one telling the lies, not the people who believe them.

You are all my neighbors, and I want my words to point you toward the One who is worthy of worship.  Because the way that God can truly bless America is by giving us the gift of Jesus’ victory over sin, not the victory of any movement of the moment.

Great Again

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Victor Chininin Buele

I could use your time to parse the speech.  I could tell you why an America First ideology has great dangers, and why it is the opposite of the message of the carpenter of Nazareth, the Lord of All.  I could tell you why the voiceless matter.  I could tell you why it’s one thing to protest and another thing to break windows and hide your face and throw things at the police. I could tell you why boasting on either side is not appropriate today.

But instead of that, let’s cut through the distractions.

We all want something to be great again.

The phrase is nothing but pregnant with the kind of rhetoric that makes the mind wonder and go to that place where the psychologists want you to go when they make you close your eyes and think of the beach on a sunny day away from all of your sorrows, away from the rebellious children, the low paying job, the ungrateful spouse.  President Trump appropriated it from another time.  From a scary time in world history.  And while it makes a part of the population increasingly scared, it makes the other section of the population increasingly optimistic. And your perception of how large each population group is ends up depending on what you want it to be.

I would like to argue that everyone wants something to be great again:

President Obama and Mrs. Obama most likely want to see a continuation of President Obama’s work and ideas.  They would be longing for progress, for restoration.

President Trump claims to want to see America restored to a former glory, a time of children having a world-class education, manufacturing jobs abounding, a middle-class nirvana.

The man with the Bikers for Trump gear most likely wants to see his life restored to a former glory, the one he had when he didn’t have to be in debt and without meaningful and well-paying employment.  He longs for restoration.  He longs for opportunity.

The woman who fears the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and who opposes the defunding of Planned Parenthood claims to long for women to have a future and good healthcare, for sex to be fun and free.

The teacher protesting the nomination of Betsy DeVos longs for education to be great. Setting aside whether this teacher is numbed silly by having to teach students how to pass a state test in order for her school district to be accredited and for her to have a job, she longs in her heart to give another human being hope of a good future.  After all, why else would she choose a life that pays little for having to deal with people’s messes–buy school supplies while parents buy drugs, comfort children torn apart by divorce and bullying.

The nuclear scientist protesting the potential replacement of a genius running the Department of Energy with the Honorable Rick Perry is longing for a time where the person running an organization actually knows and understand what it is that is being placed under their care.

We all long for something to be great again.

But that something is most definitely not America.

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23)

We long for the garden.  We want all to be great again.

We long for a righteous ruler, just, loving, and fair.  Justice Himself.  Love Himself.  Mercy Himself.  Peace Himself.

We long for human beings to overcome the curse and be transformed into the image of Jesus–working fully and happily, feasting with the fruit of their labor, delighting in the fruit of their love, and knowing all is for the best cause in the world.  No fears or tensions.

We long for a time where the bonds of debt and poverty are no more.  Where we really live the world President Obama pointed to in The Audacity of Hope, an America, and a world without hyphens.  But that as we tragically saw still eludes us for we are without peace.

We long for a time where “every pleasure will be godly and all godliness will be pleasurable” as my pastor likes to say.  A time where sex and childbearing are truly enjoyable, godly, and free.

We long for not just our children but for ourselves to really have a challenging and fulfilling education and true enjoyment and excitement about knowing more and more and more.  A time where the wisdom of God fills the earth and everyone outdoes one another in applying the marvelous knowledge of the glory of God to all disciplines to bring about true fruitfulness.  You may not use those words.  But you do long for this.

We long for a time where we keep and tend the garden, as we once were created to do.  And so that nothing filthy or unrighteous would ever enter it.

Despite the fall of humanity, our world and our humanity can still be somewhat fruitful and beautiful and hopeful.  Multiplication is inescapable.  But it is hard because the world is also fallen and broken and filthy.  Multiplication is painful. So we groan together in pain, eagerly waiting for redemption.  As popular book on education is titled, we are Waiting for Superman.

Think about it.  If Trump disgusts you, that’s a great kindness of God to you, to remind you that you do long for the garden.  You long for restoration.

If Trump doesn’t disgust you, be careful, for a serial adulterer and immoral man is now the President.  And with all the respect due to the office and to his humanity, he is not Jesus. And all the ways in which he falls short must remind us that we also long for restoration.

And the only way to restoration, if Paul was right when writing to the Romans (which he is), is through adoption as sons.

Come, and welcome to Jesus Christ.

He paid the debt.  He calls you to be free.  He calls you to be great again.

Truly great again.

Every day.  One degree of glory to the next.  Into the image of Jesus Christ.

And I doubt it comes with a red or a blue hat, a pink shirt or a silent majority sticker.  Just saying.

Testamento

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Victor Chininin Buele

Como es tradición en la bella patria natal y del corazón, el Año Viejo, ya de avanzada edad, está a punto de fenecer.  Y antes de irse, este caballero ilustre quiere dejarnos su testamento.

A todas y todos,

Ya se acerca la hora fatídica de mi casi odiada existencia.  Pero les dejo un segundo extra. Para que se acuerden de mi generosidad.  Cuidado estar asustándose y pensando que la tierra dejará de rotar algún día lejano.  Aquél que la sostiene nunca duerme ni se muere como yo.  Y científicamente hablando todo se relaciona con la adopción del UTC.  Al que tenga oídos que escuche.  Y queridos programadores, no estarán sufriendo si los equipos se dañan debido al segundo adicional.  Den gracias porque hay trabajito.

Y hablando de trabajito, muchos me hechan la culpa de todo lo que les ha pasado este año. Yo ya viejito ni oigo bien.  Pero esto sí recuerdo–que el Soberano del mundo es más sabio que yo.

Les dejo una exhortación–No importa si sea Lasso, Moreno, la Cynthia, o el queridísimo Donald J., sus corazones, queridos amigos seguirán siendo los mismos.  Protestarán a quien no haga lo que ustedes quieran y adorarán a quien aparente hacer lo que ustedes quieran.  Recuerden que todos somos políticos.  Todos tenemos nuestra agenda personal. La dificultad siempre será cuando ustedes se consideren a ustedes mismos como más importantes que los demás.  Recuerden el respeto mutuo y tengan compasión de los demás.  A mi me hechan la culpa de todo, hasta de la muerte de la “Princesa Leia”. Si ustedes piensan que el año ha sido duro para ustedes imagínense cómo me he sentido sin ser culpable de todo lo que me dicen que he hecho.  Por eso le tengo compasión al Mashi.  Y como diría él, no sean sufridores.

Les dejo unos dolaritos para que vayan a un curso del arte de la persuasión.  Es importante aprender que nuestros objetivos no van a vencer siempre y que debemos aprender a cómo persuadir a otros de los méritos de nuestras causas sin ponernos a pelear, a insultar, o a sentirnos como víctimas cuando nuestra opinión no prevalece.  Yo he tratado y tratado de persuadir pero seguían pasando cosas y nadie me quería escuchar.  Hasta el comandante Fidel se fue.

Les dejo también un pequeño regaño–dejen de creer todo lo que leen y ven en Internet. La sabiduría incluye el discernimiento lógico y aquella destreza aprendida en la calle que nos permite reconocer cuando alguien nos quiere tomar el pelo.  Entonces, por favor… poner atención.  Escucharán.

Les dejo también una botella del tamaño de esas grandotas que venden por ahí en esos lugarcitos de interesante reputación.  Una botella llena de optimismo y esperanza.  Una botella llena de alegría profunda.  Aquel optimismo que les dejo es profundo y no fallece (como yo) cuando la adversidad llega, cuando Aleppo se vuelve polvo, cuando la inestabilidad mundial se vuelve obvia, cuando la enfermedad nos llega, o cuando el sueldo no sube.  Beban en abundancia de la fuente de agua viva con la humildad de aquella mujer cuyas profundas convicciones fueron inundadas por la gracia de aquella Agua.

Al que tenga oídos que escuche.

A la familia del Chininín le dejo un abrazo muy lleno de amor, de ese amor que se hace más dulce con el tiempo y a pesar de la distancia.  Y la sonrisa de la Analí para recordar que hay certeza de que la alegría es posible y que el Arquitecto de todas las cosas no abandona jamás.  Y a Tomy que por favor sea educado y que no se coma a la Princesita Sofía.

Y aunque piensen que no me gusta la diversión, también les he dado cosas de qué reír. A Tiko Tiko, nuestro asambleísta de los sueños, le pido que por favor actualice su canción del Sistema Solar.  Plutón ya no es planeta.  ¡Ponte serio, Tiko, Tiko!  Han podido jugar los niños al equilibrismo y gimnasia en las calles de la regeneración urbana. Gracias Chato.  Y ahora sí buenos escenarios para las artes.  A la susodicha jueza pues, que por favor, ya deje a la gente que se ría y se asombre de su situación pero que sepa que es mejor en esas situaciones estar callada y cambiar.  Ya que se hizo algo, pues allí queda.  Lo que sí podemos cambiar es el futuro.

Y el futuro es aun brillante.  Bienvenido pequeño 2017.  Paz.  Es posible hallarla.

Dios, Patria y Libertad,
El Año Viejo

Ah! The Minimum Wage!

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Victor Chininin Buele

Let us not oversimplify the issue.

Earning less than fifteen dollars an hour and trying to live a life on that is very, very, very difficult.  We don’t need to look very far to see overextended Americans working two or two and a half of such jobs and still be unable to keep up.

So, let’s understand that while some may get irritated about having highways closed in protest, something is wrong.

And let’s also understand that McDonald’s is not rolling out self-service kiosks just for fun.  They will replace the labor force if the cost of labor goes up past a certain point.

I would like to start with Proverbs 30, for instance.  You may not believe the Bible is true or is the word of God.  But regardless of what you may think here, the Proverbs are often referred to even in the secular realm as a source of wisdom.  We read there:

Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
(Proverbs 30:7-9 ESV)

There is a balance.  Too much leads to complacency, laziness, idleness.  Too little leads to dire need, hunger, problems, even theft.  In relation to God, too much leads to a denial of our need for God.  Too little leads to insulting God as saying He is unable to provide for us. So, we either ignore His provision or we yell at Him for not providing according to our standards. Our view of our needs gets distorted.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with wealth per se, but a self-centered love of wealth is another story.  Or biblically, the love of money is the root of all evils, not money itself.  We can do all sorts of things with money.  And that’s why the minimum wage argument is a very important one. It’s a matter of stewardship – of management of the resources given to us.

Here is the question the politicians are not so quick to want to discuss.  And the question everybody else seems to also ignore.

Why are we being poor stewards/managers/caregivers of the U.S. economy?

My point is this:

  1. We must address the number and nature of the jobs that pay minimum wage in the United States today.  Basically – why are so many people working jobs that pay minimum wage?  We must address the underlying causes that resulted in cyclical jobs becoming permanent jobs for many Americans.
  2. We must address the intricacies that made this discussion a decade late.  For years the contribution of undocumented immigrants softened the blow of the problem.  When Americans had jobs that paid above the minimum wage and nobody wanted the cyclical jobs, American kids and undocumented immigrants were happy to have the opportunity.  When the higher-paying manufacturing jobs left the country, competition rose.  Immigration, free trade, and the minimum wage are all connected.
  3. What will happen to the nation’s poorest?  When McDonald’s changes the ordering system and the competitors do the same to keep up, our food deserts in America will have a significant impact.  The situation is bleak already.  What happens when these sources of employment dry up in our poorest neighborhoods and towns across the country?  That will also have an impact on racial relations already at a boiling point.  The minimum wage and poverty and race are all connected.
  4. Why have we become less entrepreneurial, creative, and innovative?  Yes.  Innovation remains to move us forward, but why is it that we see new shopping malls instead of new start ups?

Is it that in our abundance we became complacent, and while we were asleep, now we have a huge problem of being unable to react to the changes in the worldwide economic matrix? Kids have their eyes glued to tablet screens without wondering for a second how it is that the image they are seeing is being created.  We are all looking at the stuff that we buy at the stores, always on clearance, and never wonder the logistics that make such an impossibility possible.  Let’s wake up.

The solution is not to make the minimum wage 100 dollars an hour.  (Why stop at 15?)  The solution is deeper than that, and it requires a lot more of all of us.  It’s going to be hard. But it must be done.

There are things that are no longer as they were.  Manufacturing.  Energy.  Information technology.  Asia.  Competition.  Free trade.  Immigration.  We can sit and fight each other to death over it.  We can bicker and argue to death.  Or we can face the circumstances and move forward.

It’s a time for creativity.
It’s a time for hard conversations.
It’s a time for meaningful protest.
It’s a time to stop asking others for change but to embrace and own change.

Forgive Me, Father – A Word to Father Dotson

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Victor Chininin Buele

A quick background paragraph must go first.  I woke up this morning, thanked the Lord for a new day of life, and while catching up on the latest episode of the reality TV adventures of President-Elect Trump, I noticed a news story about the pope which CNN summarized as pope Francis granting the right to forgive abortion to every Catholic priest. http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/21/europe/pope-francis-absolve-abortion/index.html.  Such a story sure woke me up.  I published the following on my Facebook account after reading the whole article:

deskto

Father William Dotson, Associate Pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Parish in Wentzville, Missouri, and a long-time and dear friend of mine, was very kind to respond to my comment to shed some light on the subject.  This longer response comes from a need to work through how words matter.  Especially when we are dealing with the word forgiveness.  He explained the story behind the reported story.  For that I’m thankful.

“This story is a huge misunderstanding.”  I thank Father Dotson for shedding light on the subject.  It turns out that the media did not find a good way to summarize what actually happened in a way that actually would get someone to click on it.  “Pope: Abortion Forgivable” makes for many more clicks.  About a year ago I protested about a similar story where the Year of Mercy was announced by the pope about the same subject.  Just like before, the pope was not addressing forgiveness of the sin but forgiveness of the ecclesiastical consequences, the ecclesiastical penalties of a sin like abortion (i.e., excommunication, etc.)  Only bishops could forgive those penalties before the permission has been granted, and now your friendly neighborhood Roman catholic priest can extend this permission to forgive the ecclesiastical penalties of such a sin to anyone coming to confess this.

So, my temptation would be to summarize this as: “Pope says absolutely nothing of substance about healing after an abortion.”  “Media takes advantage of obscure statement.”

But that would just contribute to the climate of non-meaningful dialog.

I have not taken my original post down as I would with an apology if I would have found my original statement to be wrong, unhelpful, or incoherent to the conversation.  While CNN has been proven to be inaccurate in this story, my point was well summarized by what I read shortly before encountering that story in Tim Keller’s Hidden Christmas and quoted in my Facebook post.  Nothing in Father Dotson’s response to my comment or in his own post about the subject have changed my original point.  So, let me interact further with this.

While we both are starting at a point where we both acknowledge the sinfulness of abortion, we appear to diverge greatly on everything after that.  But I do need to affirm this point of initial agreement lest we think this does not matter at all.  Let’s say that Rosita walks into the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic and exerts her legal right as a United States citizen to have an abortion.  On the way out she sees this short guy standing on a step ladder named Pastor Victor, and their eyes meet.  And she does not get a look of judgement but one of compassion.  It’s not an “I told you, so you filthy, ugly sinner.  Now you are going to pay for not ‘choosing life,’ and I’m going to make sure you know it” moment.  She just went through an incredibly difficult historical point of her life, and I don’t have any clue as to what lays before and after this moment in her life.  The fence keeps her from further contact, but the boyfriend did not go in.  He stayed outside listening to his loud music.  As she walks to him she says hello to my children and my wife who are there praying.  We don’t have funny signs nor are we seeking to violate the law.  We are not in her face.  But she loses it.  It all becomes real.  And she is broken.  While she may have had a choice to do this, the consequences of this kick in.  She believed the counselors and the literature that advised her that she had disposed a blob of tissue.  But there she finds herself alone.  Her feelings don’t match up with a mere biological disposal. You know, that loneliness that is not overcome just because she is sitting next to the man who paid for the procedure.  The sadness she carries is an indescribable sadness. So she gets out of the car, and she finds Pastor Victor and Father Dotson standing by each other.

My priorities in such an encounter would be:

  1. To get my wife there to hold Rosita and comfort her.
  2. To listen to her.  To take her away from there and give her a place to collect her thoughts and her emotions.
  3. To offer actual help.  We will have to sort out how we can be a blessing to her as the church.  We would find ways to welcome her and care for her.  The Lord Jesus has taught us to have compassion on those who are lost–like sheep without a shepherd.
  4. To preach the gospel to her.  Acts 8:35 gives us a model here of the loving command to tell her the good news about Jesus starting with this circumstance in her life.  How does Jesus make you whole.  How does Jesus carry you in his arms.  How does Jesus through His church lead you to repentance and healing.  How does Jesus give you hope, actual hope, of restoration.  In other words, we are to preach of the calling and consequences of forgiveness of sins.  We all, not just those who are in this situation, have sinned and fallen short.  How could we not offer the same forgiveness we have experienced!
  5. Regardless of her response to the call of the gospel, to love her sacrificially, generously, and lavishly.  We are not peddlers trying to see conversion as a financial transaction.  It may be we are the only people in the world who are talking to her at the moment.

I would say that Father Dotson would say that these are his priorities as well.

The challenge is that he comes to the game with a very complicated ecclesiastical set of rules on his back that make such an invitation very difficult.  If I am not misrepresenting him, forgiveness can only come through a Roman catholic priest (but Jesus did away with the need for a priesthood with the once-and-for-all sacrifice of his perfect life at the cross). Forgiveness cannot be separated from this Roman catholic structure.  His response to my question implies that, though we have Vatican II trying to bridge this gap, we are still as far away as we were five hundred years ago.  And what the pope is doing here is allowing for the local priest to do this rather than only the archbishop of St. Louis in our case.

So, I’m beyond thankful for his clarification and for not wanting to take a Facebook thread into the realm of confession, what the roman church calls the sacrament of confession. There are a number of verses from the New Testament as well as a plethora of teachings from Roman church history that will make his point for Father Dotson that there is a special gift and command to the Roman church to forgive sins.  There are a number of verses from the New Testament that plainly make the point that the call of repentance and the forgiveness of sins are unmediated and are on the basis of Christ’s work alone.  That discussion is a worthy one.  It matters because the essence of the gospel is at play.

But today my point is a narrower one – every news outlet in America is going to report that (by implication):

  1. Christians did not think abortion was forgivable
  2. The good pope Francis has changed this and now the church is changing its bad ways and granting this forgiveness
  3. Since abortion is not bad according to our collective cultural norms, this is a giant leap forward for humankind in accepting abortion
  4. (Perhaps), see, abortion is not that big of a deal!

That will only increase this perception that Christians are idiots and need to get on with the times.  Reality is that abortion, like every sin, is forgivable.  But not because some guy in Rome says so.  But because Jesus died for it.  And he never leaves us there and alone to pick up the consequences on our own.  When Matthew the evangelist reports the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he says, “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.””  There was no ecclesiastical structure or stack of rules.  Just a plain call to repent.  And real forgiveness is at hand. I remember tricking all these priests while growing up.  For academic and family reasons, partaking in communion at the catholic church was always a must.  So, I, the clean-cut, goody-two-shoes rebel-who-pretended-to-be-a-good-boy always looked at these priests and delighted in saying, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.  It has been x weeks since my last confession.”  I would list the respectable sins: skipping church, lying to my mother, not praying enough.  And then I would deliver my carefully-crafted line, “And forgive me, Father, for any sins I may have left out in my examination of conscience, either by neglect or nervousness or whatever reason.”  This line was always delivered to sound like an afterthought, a very humble and pious afterthought.  This line hid the ugliness of my sin for many years.  I knew it was detestable.  It was so bad that I couldn’t even say it to the old priest who was hard of hearing.  If I were waiting for a priest to deliver me from that, I would still be broken and actively destroying my life.  Maybe I wouldn’t even be here anymore.  But when that tall dude in college led me to actually pray in the Spirit, “Forgive me, Father,” to the Father in heaven through the merits of Christ alone and not my own, only then was my freedom found.

I cannot and will not stand by anything that puts obstacles in the way of forgiveness. And I will not stand quiet while people are led to believe that forgiveness is pointless.

Father Dotson himself writes, “This is not about forgiving sins but about ecclesiastical penalties, and is mostly a symbolic gesture, as priests generally already had this faculty.” That is the most scary thing I have read his month.  And knowing that “President Trump” has been written this month, that should say a lot.  Let’s be done with symbolic gestures and get to the real gritty business of seeking the lost and welcoming them.  Jesus did not keep his holiness to himself.  He radically affected every sinner who came to him.  They were never the same.  There is no mediator but Jesus – the separation between God and man has not been in place for 2000 years.  Let’s get on with the times.

Healing is messy.  Let the full, clean, crisp gospel shine forth have its right effect.

And I might just go see my friend Father Dotson after one of his morning masses and continue to talk.  It’s good for the soul.  Thank you for the comment.

So What If Abortion Ended – What Would I “Obsess” Over, Then? I’m Glad You Asked

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Angela Chininin Buele

Perhaps you wonder if the only thing I ever think about is abortion.  I assure you, it is not.  I think about lots of other things – from how to better educate myself about current events on the global scale to wondering why the guy that “predicted” the Cubs’ recent championship win didn’t get more media attention.

I am a regular person.  I am also a passionate person who won’t just sit by while tiny people – people just like you and me, created in the very image of God – are legally dismembered in the very place they should be most protected.

In the end, though, it isn’t just the abortion of unborn babies that upsets me so.  It is the fervor with which people cling to the gifts given them, while they reject and disdain the Creator from whom the gifts come.  Essentially, my message would not change if abortion were to end.  “Flee from death and darkness!  Turn to Light and Life in Christ!”  This is and will always be my plea.

If you have read any of my posts, I pray they have been used to lead you a greater understanding of the eternal hope made possibly only through Jesus.  It has been an intense 40 days in our household as the candle was often burned at both ends.  I am very thankful for the kind and wise husband the Lord has given me.  As I have written, he has surrendered many hours in order to review, edit, and advise, not to mention designing the graphics.

I’ll likely take a break from blogging for a bit, but I will not stop praying – for those who pro-choice, for those who are pregnant and scared, and for those who are pro-life and putting their hope in the law of man instead of the grace of God.

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” ( John 14:6).