A New Reality

Tony Campolo visited Dordt this past week. I can tell I'm getting older...most of the students I asked had never heard of him. He gave two lectures in which he challenged students and faculty to engage the world on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. He challenged us to proclaim the new reality of the Kingdom of God - he challenged us to take action. For the most part I agreed with the things he had to say...and even if I disagreed...we need people like Campolo to stick their fingers in our faces and shake things up a bit. People like Campolo remind us of things we sometimes miss...they challenge us to think differently about issues...they say things that tick people off...but I'll take anger over apathy any day.

That being said...I have to admit I was disappointed. After listening to the evening lectures, and conversing with him over supper, I am left with the feeling that Campolo doesn't go far enough. On Wednesday evening he talked about the "new reality" of the kingdom...that we as Christians should be idealistic, not giving into the status quo, but proclaiming and participating in the reality of Christ's kingdom. Yet I couldn't help but think, for Campolo, this new reality is the reality of the democratic party. That government solutions and programs using the existing properly funded structures will bring an end to poverty and injustice. That if the existing educational structures are properly supported and expanded into third world nations, poverty and oppression will be brought to an end. But what if the structures are part of the problem? What if the choice between a republican candidate and a democratic candidate is really no choice at all? What if it comes down, as it did in the 2004 election, to Bush and Bush lite?

What if Christians came to recognize that the school structures (both public and Christian) are oppressive and need to be radically rebuilt? What if Christians came to realize the economic structures in our country are establishing a caste system with little economic mobility...and the jobs that are being created by the economy tend to be low paying with lower benefits? What if we finally realized that both parties want to engage in the politics of fear in order to preserve "national interests" at the expense of the poor in the third world? What if Christians demanded a political candidate who offered a radically different perspective than the status quo politics we find today? What if Christians demanded more then just band aid solutions to poverty and injustice? That in order to impact these issues we might just have to understand the complexity of poverty and oppression, and admit the solutions are just as complex. What if we finally were awakened to the fact that the majority of the poor in this country are not in the inner cities...but in rural America? That many of the poor are "invisible"... How do we work to eradicate poverty where ever it is found? How do transform the college experience from one of debt and job training...to thoughtful reflection and equipping people for participation in the new reality established by Christ's kingdom?

A Poem for Vanessa

How do you grieve for what you never had? How do you grieve
for what might have been?
The hopes and fears never expressed
The joys and sorrows that will never come…

The simple things we take for granted
To watch you sleeping – dreaming – smiling
To smell your new born baby skin…so clean and unblemished
To see your big eyes – open – looking – trying to make sense of the strange world into
which you were forced to come.
To see your sister hold you, your brother hit you…and to hear you cry.
To be able to comfort you and tell you everything will be fine…

How does one grieve for pudding filled long johns that will never be eaten?
For monkey bars and tunnel slides never to be explored…
For swimming pools, fishing poles, and happy meals…
For all that little girls are supposed to do without a care in the world.

How does one grieve an empty chair? For the extra crib and a car seat never bought…
How does one grieve for graduations and weddings that will never come?
How do you grieve for someone you barely know?

I wanted you to experience this world
The colors, the smells, the warmth, the cold
I wanted you to skin your knee, to catch a cold, to have your heart broken.

I wanted to teach you things…
To dance, to play catch, to tackle your older brother…
I wanted to hold your hand as we walked…
I wanted to read to you stories of bears and rabbits…talking lions and fairy godmothers
But these things are not to be…

There will come a day when we will see you again
You will have so much to tell us
We will walk together hand in hand through the tall grass, the wind at our back
I will listen as you tell of your adventures
The places you have been, the things you have done…
The woman you have become…
For the dead have a history…you are not forsaken or abandoned
The Lord still beckons…calling you to become the woman he intends for you to be

Please know we will never forget you
Not a day will pass without your name fluttering through our thoughts like a butterfly
dancing across the blue sky.
I hope you will remember us…
Be patient – wait for us – we will see you soon.