Of Shoulders Left Un-shrugged and Crisis Kept Unabandoned
by Dan Haseltine
Dan Haseltine is the lead vocalist for Jars of Clay and co-founder of Blood:Water Mission
I received a wonderful email from a friend recently. It was timely. My life has gotten quite overwhelming: I’m wondering about environmental issues far more than ever before. I’m wrestling to know what it looks like to stay engaged with the political activities going on in the U.S., and on top of this still keeping my hands dirty in the relationships I am trying to grow in Africa. And in certain moments, I have wondered why I shouldn’t simply, intentionally, forget a few of those things, lighten the list… and choose not to care.
My good friend wanted to pass along a few words from Alexander McCall Smith, through his character Precious Ramotswe, in the book, “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.” Almost at the end, as she has reunited an abducted boy to his family, McCall writes, “Mma Ramotswe walked back towards her van, not wanting to intrude upon the intimate moments of reunion. She was crying; for her child, too — remembering the minute hand that had grasped her own, so briefly, while it tried to hold on to a strange world that was slipping away so quickly. There was so much suffering in Africa that it was tempting just to shrug your shoulders and walk away. But you can’t do that, she thought. You just can’t.”
I was quickly reminded that it is both a matter of choice, and a matter of where God has placed me in the history of the world. It will always be tempting to slide away from the pressing stories of injustice, suffering and devastation that crowd our minds, and seize our hearts. For those of us who have been given the curse of choice in this area, it will always be a hard decision…the one to press inward, even as we sense that we just can not take anymore of the reality.
As McCall reminds us, we simply can’t do that. We can not shrug our shoulders, not walk away. There is no where to go that frees us from the turns and developments in our own story. And there will never be a peace if we pull a Jonah, and run the other way. To run, is to lie to ourselves about what we know to be true. Our story is not our own. Just as Mother Theresa so wonderfully illuminated, “IF we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” We can try to usher in a willful forgetfulness, as a means to breathe a little more easily, but it will not end in peace.
This is why I choose to keep moving inward, this is why we all walk closer to the flame. As we consider this week, this next year, the next decade… we are hopeful that God is orchestrating something brilliant. David Wilcox, a magnificent singer/songwriter gave us a gift quite a few years ago. It was a song called, “Show the Way.” It is a musical declaration of what it means to live in the “already and the not yet, ” of the Kingdom of God… or what Paul Farmer calls, “the long defeat.” Find and Listen to that song, and find hope, and courage to walk with shoulders left un-shrugged and crisis kept unabandoned.
Peace to you – Dan
(Courtesy: Dan Haseltine + Jars of Clay/Blood:Water Mission)
