Laurie's Blog

The Trouble With Pakistan

Laurie Cook — Aug. 31, 2010

       “By nature I am a very compassionate person that often responds to the needs of people. I was moved by the plight of the people in Haiti and dug pretty deep to reach out to help. But the trouble with Pakistan is……”

        So what is the trouble with Pakistan? As a Relief and Development agency that relies on donors responding to needs, we have been forced to look at this question over the past few weeks as we try to provide assistance for the flooding victims that desperately need our help.

        There are a variety of reasons for a weak response. The holiday time of year, donor fatigue related to Haiti and the fact that floods never seem to get people’s attention to the same extent as other disasters are all factors. But there is another one that has received media attention relating to issues around the Muslim population, the Taliban and the constant concern that there is a relationship between the Pakistan government and extremists who are interfering in Afghanistan.

        If I was a donor giving to an agency that was responding by raising support and giving the resources directly to the Pakistan government (and I don’t think there are any of these) or if I am a taxpayer worried about our government giving large sums to Pakistan, than the concerns would be legitimate. (By the way, our government monies largely go to agencies providing direct support to affected people not to their government.)

       Frankly we are seeing people being reticent to give to a largely Muslim population even when they know the agency is reaching the victims of the flooding directly. As a result, women and children, men and families are going hungry without shelter after losing everything they own.

       It is most troubling when we see this reticence in our faith community. For me it is very difficult to reconcile the life and words of Jesus Christ and his call to us as followers with a reluctance to reach out to people in desperate need for any reason. Is there anything in the gospels or even our theology that would suggest or support withholding our compassion from families and individuals in Pakistan because we see images in our mind of the twin towers and extremists in Somalia committing atrocities? I just don’t get it. We work in “Christian” countries in Africa where “Christian” leaders are involved in corruption and atrocities and yet there is no connection made when reaching out with compassion to those in need. My goodness, if we applied the same logic we would stop working with the homeless in Canada because Christians were committing atrocities somewhere in Africa.

      There is ample evidence that Christians by nature, commitment and by calling are most often self-sacrificing towards those in need. However I believe there are those who are influencing Christians today with subversive messages that are largely political and do not reflect the demands that the radical message of Christ puts on how we should live.

      Margaret Manning wrote the following in the email daily newsletter A Slice of Infinity:
      “When I am honest with myself, I recognize a deep aversion to this radical vision of service and sacrifice. It is not difficult to understand Nietzsche's aversion and critique. The recognition of Jesus as the Suffering Servant, and the implications for his followers to "go and do likewise" goes against the grain of my self-serving heart. Why would I choose weakness as embodied by Jesus over the will to power of Nietzsche?”

      These voices speaking into our faith community such as those of the Glen Beck’s of the world have a lot more to do with an unsavoury mix of Nietzsche’s will to power and Christianity. When these voices are allowed to stand between Christ’s message of unadulterated, self sacrificing compassion and those in desperate need the Christian community must stop and take account.

Montreal Canadians and More&.

Laurie Cook — May. 14, 2010

Driving to work this morning I was “startled” to hear a report that found that a majority of people get the most joy out of meeting face to face with family and friends and that connecting through Facebook is far behind in its ability to bring joy. (As an aside I marvel at the things people seem to need to survey.)

There is a thread that goes through human history and runs through even our current high tech, fast paced lives. It seems that we are at our best and our happiest when we live and breath, work and play in community.

Teams (community) develop the most comprehensive and even creative business solutions. The Montreal Canadians are busy proving that playing as a team committed to the team’s goals works better than freewheeling individualism.

I remember my first experience with microfinance or what is sometimes referred to as “village banking”. On the hillside in Kigali, Rwanda we met a group of about 12 or 13 women that were being supported by URWEGO (now Urwego Opportunity Bank). The meeting that I was there to experience was one at which the members were making their monthly payments. The lead woman in the group reported to the Urwego rep that one of their members was unable to make her payment and that the group was going to cover her amount on her behalf. The second thing that stood out for me came when they asked the women what was most important to them about this microfinance. One participant spoke up saying that the strength and security that came from her group was more important to her than the money. In light of the depth of poverty that she was experiencing, this came to me as being profound.

There are many issues related to poverty and injustice throughout the world that need to be addressed. But today I’m just thankful that our WRC work, “Cultivating Hope and Growing Communities” is making a difference.

Haiti Will Set Us Free

Laurie Cook — Jan. 14, 2010

The image that struck me the hardest was a video showing stacks of concrete floors, the scene punctuated with iron rebar springing in every direction and small spaces between these flattened floors. Waving out from the dark spaces was an arm.

First you react by trying to imagine the horror and both physical and emotional pain of the event as your world exploded. But then as you realize that those people become engulfed in shock, the stark reality hits you that many will be buried for long periods of time until heavy equipment arrives to roll away the massive stones that have entombed them.

This unfolding tragedy is an assault on our senses, our faith, and everything that keeps us human.

There are so many images, sounds and statistics that overwhelm us with the extent of the human tragedy. But as we were working through this in the early stages yesterday, contacting program and field partners, rallying the support of our constituency and trying to communicate with on the ground personnel, I sensed that a small voice was whispering, crying in a small part of my brain. As I listened with my heart, I realized that there were many voices. It was the realization that there wasn’t just a massive earthquake. There wasn’t just massive infrastructure loss. There wasn’t just large numbers and estimates of deaths.

The voices are real people with stories of families, friends, communities and churches. They lived and breathed, loved and were loved.

Over the past year we have all been engrossed in defending ourselves in the wake of a tough economic downturn. Some suffered through job losses, pension devaluation and for a few, even more difficult times.

My sense is that through this year our focus was largely turned inward, concerned about our future, trying to plan and trying to protect our lifestyle and things.

Maybe Haiti will set us free — from ourselves — for awhile.

OUCH!!

Laurie Cook — Oct. 26, 2009

We received these comments from a recent visitor who is a partner of ours in India. I think this sincere observation does not require any further comment from me:

"It was an opportunity for me having had the chance to share about India and the work of my organization. It was interesting to also learn about the lives of Canadians, which is so different from us. People were nice and supporting but I feel sad to see all the potatoes and fruits wasted in the field, in the storage house, processing unit and on the plate. I wish I could take them all home and distribute here to the hungry people."

Legacy

Laurie Cook — Sep. 4, 2009

To be painfully honest I have never really liked this word. One of my more prominent shortcomings is that I live mostly for the moment when it comes to my everyday life. I do not connect with a “mission statement” for my life or a 10 year personal strategic plan. In turn the thought of what one might leave for a legacy has left me cold as well.

But an impending, “milestone” birthday (which by the way I have cancelled) has collided in my consciousness with the recent funerals of Ted Kennedy and an acquaintance as well. The column written by Jim Wallis of Sojourners is a wonderful read when it comes to the subject of a legacy http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/03/faith-is-about-redemption-the-life-of-ted-kennedy/ I would encourage you to make sure you follow his advice and read what Kennedy’s son also wrote.

As I sat in the pews listening to the summary of a life well lived, words spoken about a relative of a close friend, I was also struck with the thoughts of the legacy we leave behind, regardless of whether or not we like to think about such things.

After the service I found myself, eating something and chatting with a friend about the same age as me. We found that we were both wondering what people might end up saying at our funerals. I admit this is a subject that only a couple of people facing an aforementioned milestone would be prompted to have.

The question was actually quite provocative and somewhat daunting. So much so that we decided that which ever one of us went first the other would stand up at the funeral and lie.

Seriously, if we have been paying attention at all to the principles of our faith, a reasonable legacy should prevail. Ours may not reach the level of exposure that Ted’s has and maybe the recalled list of our deeds will not have been that outstanding either. But I trust that through the journey we will have touched others in ways that will have brought lasting results.

I loved the title of Jim Wallis’s article, Faith is About Redemption.

Legacy – he summed it up for me when he said:

“…..who, though sorely tested by adversity and plagued by his own moral shortcomings, found a way to overcome his personal flaws and pain to achieve extraordinary things. But (our names here) was even more than that. His life was also the classic Christian story of redemption, of being saved from sin by faith, grace, and love, and by being faithful to the commands of Christ: “As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.”

Why do we give to the poor?

Laurie Cook — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:48:06 PM EDT

Why do we give to the poor? Why do we give our time to serve others? What prompts us to do it?

If it’s a flip of a coin into a tin cup on the street it could be as simple as an impulse. If it’s a donation in response to an appeal from one of us relief and development agencies it might be guilt (some of us are pretty good at awakening that).But there are other more honorable things such as a sense of duty, love and compassion, sharing and I have met some for whom it is actually a heartfelt calling. All of this is OK.

But what happens when it’s your best friend or brother that is going through difficulty. Then it gets more personal and the prompts are much deeper and given more serious consideration.

It would appear that our relationship or closeness has a significant bearing on the types of prompts as well as our reaction to them. Another way of looking at this is that it can really depend on the person in need’s standing with us.

I’ve been ruminating on this since I received a “Weekly Reflection” awhile ago from The Merton Institute. It’s been sitting in my inbox waiting for me to pay attention. But I had left it there because I knew it was something I had to deal with personally.

Read it and see what it says to you.

“Persons are known not by the intellect alone, nor by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.

To shut out the person and to refuse to consider him as a person, as another self, we resort to the impersonal "law" and "nature." That is to say we block off the reality of the other, we cut the intercommunication of our nature and his nature, and we consider only our own nature with its rights, its claims, and its demands. In effect, however, we are considering our nature in the concrete and his nature in the abstract. And we justify the evil we do to our brother because he is no longer a brother, he is merely an adversary, an accused, an evil being.

To restore communication, to see our oneness of nature with him, and to respect his personal rights, integrity, his worthiness of love, we have to see ourselves as accused along with him, condemned to death along with him, sinking into the abyss with him, and needing, with him, the ineffable gift of grace and mercy to be saved.”

Thomas Merton. Seeds of Destruction (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961): 254-255.

“The basic thing in Christian ethics is to look at the person and not at the nature... Because when we consider "nature" we consider the general, the theoretical, and forget the concrete, the individual, the personal reality of the one confronting us.”

Seeds of Destruction: 254

If our connection with others is in “the abstract" our response will be different than if “we have to see ourselves as accused along with him, condemned to death along with him, sinking into the abyss with him, and needing, with him, the ineffable gift of grace and mercy to be saved” as Merton so aptly puts it.

The faith community I was raised in had a practice of calling everyone “brother” or “sister”. But it seems to me that if we are to “restore communication…..to respect his personal rights, integrity, his worthiness of love” we must take this brother thing and even our relationship with all mankind beyond rhetoric. We must look beyond the shabby clothes of the homeless, the swollen bellies of the hungry, and the empty eyes of those without hope and see “the concrete, the individual, the personal reality of the one confronting us”.

For many of us our faith presents us with a higher calling when it comes to our role and responsibility in the human race. To be able to live this out the way we are called to we need to see beyond pictures of abstract individuals who could benefit from a gift we are prompted to give and we must allow ourselves to be confronted with the personal reality of a brother.

I feel fortunate........

Laurie Cook — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 1:47:12 PM EDT

to have lived long enough to see the evangelical wing of the church move from viewing social work as “nice” to integral to the gospel.

There have been some interesting twists in the journey of faith of my family. My grandmother was born into a “high” Presbyterian family in Scotland around 1885. As a young woman she embraced the work and beliefs of the Salvation Army. However this was not well received, after all they were working and associating with lower class and people of ill repute. Grandma was disowned. She met my Grandpa and immigrated to Canada. There they joined a Pentecostal church and the emphasis again changed.

My grandparents and parents were very conscious of others and went out of their way to serve anyone and everyone. But the churches, meetings, conferences and teaching all led us to believe that “mainline” churches and the Salvation Army did “social” work and ours did the “real” work of the gospel.

It’s really only been over the past few years as I have become involved in relief and development and rubbed shoulders with evangelicals from many other countries that I have begun to see how much of this teaching distorts scripture and even the gospel itself. Now I find myself frustrated or cringing every time I’m asked if there is an evangelism component to a relief and development program or if we are preaching the gospel.

I actually find it rather embarrassing now to read scripture with an open mind. Subjects, such as “the gospel”, the role of Christians (even the definition and signs of being a Christian) become totally different when looked at carefully. The scripture’s emphasis on the poor and our responsibilities to justice and the dispossessed, under privileged and disenfranchised, all jump off the pages with much more prominent roles than a simple one dimensional responsibility of leading people to “salvation” that has crippled our ability to provide the light of God’s kingdom as Christ obviously called us to do.

One might feel able to rationalize that the magnitude of the issue of eternal damnation versus heaven outweighs all of the scripture around our Christian responsibilities to widows and orphans etc. because this is an overarching or defining issue. However it is inexcusable for us to have allowed our scripturally explicit responsibilities to slip into the background the way we did in some communities of faith.

But I started out by saying “I feel fortunate”. Despite a few letters from people who are genuinely concerned about slippage and the great falling away there are encouraging signs illustrating how many of us are looking very soberly at what it truly means to be Christians with a calling to live in this world and convey Christ’s compassion and love.

Distinct Impact Today and Tomorrow

Laurie Cook — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 2:34:06 PM EDT

We respond quickly when peoples lives hang in the balance. And we are highly committed to helping people help themselves in the long term. Through World Relief Canada, we engage in compassionate ways to meet needs.