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December 9, 2000
Dear Fellow Sojourners,
I have been battling with the desire to write this letter for
over a month now and at last I am down to the wire and know that
if I don’t write today I won’t have a slate of electors
to send to Washington ... ha, ha, ha. Would that this election
situation were laughable but the seriousness of the situation
is one of the obstacles that has kept me from writing this letter.
However, here we are, the Marsdens of Moscow, home for a five
month visit. Just the phrase "home for a five month visit"
raises several issues. Are we "home" here in the United
States or is "home" now Moscow, Russia? Is "home"
a place that we visit, or is "home" the place where
we "live and move and have our being?" If "home"
is, as the coined phrase of old tells us, "where the heart
is," then I either have one broken heart or I have been blessed
with a second one.
It is easy to focus on the negative answer and believe that one
is doomed to have no home and to never be at peace in either place,
to feel that one is living half a life in each place but a complete
life in neither. I choose, however, to believe that I have been
blessed with two homes and enough heart to love and care for them
both. God is that good and that powerful, yes, all the time. In
fact, what I have been learning from this period of "home
assignment" is that the world is my home, or the universe,
and I am called to love, care, and pray for the whole of it. Home
is much larger than I once thought it to be and it has nothing
to do with the square footage measured within the walls of my
dwelling space. This lesson is a blessing in the freedom from
attachment to a tangible, measurable home but it also brings an
awareness of a great responsibility to know my larger home, mainly
the world and her inhabitants, wherever they live because we are
all sharing this larger home and thus the responsibility for caring
for it and for one another.
Having lived across the globe for these short three years has
been a humbling experience in many ways. What has perhaps been
the most humbling is the realization of my own ignorance with
regard to the rest of the world, and especially so when I am faced
with the truth of the much longer histories of the other countries
in relation to the infant country from which I hail. Walking through
Moscow and other parts of Russia and visiting towns and seeing
buildings that are centuries older than the entire nation of the
United States broadens one’s sense of time more than a little
bit! It also provides a healthful perspective on one’s native
country to view it from another culture. The U.S. is such a young
nation and yet so powerful and so advanced, so well-educated that
learning from other countries and their histories does not seem
to be a valued prospect. My grandfather Clifford Allen often used
the phrase "educated beyond one’s intelligence."
Sometimes I sense that this is what is happening in the U.S. Our
isolation from other nations and our prosperity and power often
create a superiority complex which prohibits learning from other
nations that we deem inferior. If we are as intelligent as we
are educated then we should be aware of the tremendous value of
learning from other nations’ mistakes and successes. These
nations may not have been "where we are" but they have
"been somewhere" and especially if they have "been
somewhere" where we do not wish to go we should pay attention
to the lessons their "travels" can afford us! Biblically,
if much has been given to us then much is required, so it is not
enough to say that we are "a lot better off" than other
nations, we ought to be by virtue of what has been entrusted to
us.
During our home assignment we have been home-schooling our three
children, Hannah grade 9, Christiana grade 7 and Jeremiah grade
3. Christiana and I have been studying many other countries in
her "World Studies" course, which has added to my awareness
of my own ignorance. Learning about other countries and their
histories while simultaneously following the election in the U.S.
has been quite an emotive and thought-provoking experience for
me. In studying other lands and their forms of government and
seeing how much abuse and injustice has been perpetrated by corrupt
and dishonest leadership, it has been frightening to see the path
that our country is taking. All one needs to do is to look around
at the tragedies that have occurred and are occurring in other
countries where honesty is optional (and usually ill-advised),
where the rules not only are changed according to who is in power
but change during the game, and where uncertainty is the only
thing that is certain, to see that the path the U.S. is traveling
is a dangerous one. In one sense it seems that in our efforts
to be open-minded and accepting we have accepted having no mind
at all. If, as it seems apparent merely from this election, the
U.S. is so divided, so polarized in opinion with regard to what
is good or right for the country and her people, then the only
place left to appeal (now a word with an interesting weight) is
to a Power beyond ourselves, a Power greater than ourselves.
By the grace of God I arrive at the point of this communication,
which is to say, there is Hope and that Hope is Jesus Christ our
Lord and Savior, who came from just that Greater Power, that Power
beyond ourselves, our Creator and Sustainer, the God, Jehovah,
who was and is and will be, forever and always! I am thankful
that there is no need for an election for His position, we don’t
need a majority vote, a popular vote or an electoral college,
we don’t need a lawyer, a judge, a court or even a supreme
court to decide for us. This Creator has given us life, liberty
and the path to joy that are ours in any situation, any political
climate and in any country in the world because He has given us
eternal life through the life, death and resurrection of His one
and only Son. This Son, who came to earth for others and left
for others and sent the Holy Spirit to sustain others also taught
us how to live in these and all times. He taught us to pray without
ceasing, to trust in God alone and to hope for the world to come
where there will be only goodness, truth and rejoicing. This gift
of Hope is available to us all, democrat or republican, American
or Russian, Israeli or Palestinian, we only need to acknowledge
it and claim it. "Seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall
be given to you." The only catch, the only requirement is
the awareness of need, the humility to ask and the vulnerability
to be open to receive.
This Christmas may we all be aware of the need, humble enough
to ask for help and guidance and vulnerable and open enough to
receive the Answer who has been given to us in the Babe who was
born in a manger, the Man who walked among us, the Servant who
died for us and the Savior who rose for us. Jesus Christ is with
us all even to the end of the age and forever more. Amen.
In Christ’s love,
Laurie Marsden
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 91
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