From my journal. My first thoughts upon arriving in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, on my trip to observe Compassion International:
SAN SALVADOR:
McDonalds. Shopping malls. Sherwin Williams. This looks like North America. This looks like a place blossoming with the fruits of capitalism and democracy. And it is.
Prostitutes. Broken glassed storefronts, graffiti. A passed out bearded man on a sidewalk. This looks like North America too. This looks like a place choked by the weeds of selfishness and politics. And it is.
San Salvador, Central America perhaps, is just North America fast forwarded or under a magnifying glass. The disparity between the haves and have nots is here in different proportions, in exaggerated contrast. The living and the dying share the smallest nation in Central America, splitting it in half. Fifty percent of El Salvador’s people are impoverished, living on less than the equivalent of $1 a day. The other fifty percent have more. They are living somewhere between getting by and luxury.
And that is what makes the Americas so much more frustrating to me than some other impoverished nations. In parts of Africa exist tribes in which poverty is the norm. There is no wealth, no getting by, no other kind of life within view to compare oneself too. There is no hope down the street. No one to plead with, no neighbor to help. It is easy in such places to believe that such a neighbor, one that was blessed with more, would share if he only existed. And maybe he does in some far away land. Maybe he’ll arrive on an airplane and save us – they might wonder.
But in the Americas the neighbors with more than enough exist in abundance and every poor person knows it. I was slapped today by this realization that in the Americas help IS down the road and needn’t arrive from a far away place by plane. If only the houses we passed on the way to the Compassion International projects today would look beyond their own front doors. If only the patrons of the malls and fast food chains and home improvement stores would keep just enough and spend the rest on fighting poverty next door. If North Americans would look at their daughter’s dance costume as three Salvadorans that could be saved, at their new stereo as six stomachs that could be filled, at a church sound system as ten thousand bodies clothed, fed and revived by the love of God – If only.
If only the Church, in every nation it lives in, would stop and stoop and dress the wounds of it’s own members and then it’s own countrymen and then those beyond it’s borders.
If only I could do this. Only enough. But what does that look like?
I have only a few minutes to pop in on SHLOG.COM and give a quick update about our trip. Everyone is well and aside from losing our luggage (we have it now) there haven´t been any hitches in our travels. We tour the homes of children sponsored through Compassion International everyday and play with the children at Compassion´s ¨project¨ sites. I´m slowly learning Spanish, enough to ask where the bathroom is, and learning that tickling and falling down to get laughs are international forms of communication all kids understand.
I´m accumulating stories, journaling daily, and will have a lot to share when we get back. The moral of every story I´ll tel though is that the Church is a global politic, a powerful alternative to the parties and presidents of nations, able to reach into souls in ways that policies and administrations cannot, able to care for the whole person in ways that no one else is able. I´m seeing that proven here in El Salvador where half of the nation is living on less than $1 a day, 80% of little girls are sexually abused before age 12 and gangs rule the country side. Even here, in poverty that makes prayer and words feel trite and insignificant, chidren smile and eat and learn and mothers and fathers have hope. Doctors, teachers, policemen, pastors, singers and painters, lovers of other peeople are born at these orojects daily. People are being transformed and seeds are being sown for a future with less hunger and sickness. And it is the Church reaching through the arms of Compassion International to the people we´ve been with here this week.
To everyone who has sponsored a child through Compassion, please be encouraged. The children treasure your letters and ask us if we know you (they have no idea how many Steves there are in America). You are solvingreal problems for real people and God is getting the attention and credit for it. Thank you for loving children. By doing so you are loving Jesus. And I´ve seen him smile back at us this week. I´ve heard him say ¨Gracias.¨
More when we land.
Thanks for the prayers,
Shaun
My pastor is a keen communicator but today his message on the tenth commandment bidding us not to “covet” was overshadowed and outgunned by Sarah McLaughlin. Her music video for “World On Fire” prefaced his message and created compulsions in me that three points on a screen and thirty minutes from a pulpit just didn’t. Amazing how powerful the duo of song and sight is for some of us, especially when tied to the lived example of giving.
I leave town tomorrow for El Salvador, where I’m promised I’ll walk through poverty like none I’ve seen before, and today’s plea from a rock star to take less in order to give more was a sobering preparation of my heart and mind for all that waits for me this week.
Thanks, Sarah for your inspiring sermon this morning.
Show today in Lewisburg.
Pics and more afterwards.
And I still owe you the same for last night’s show. As soon as I get a break.
Then tomorrow I leave for El Salvador for the week. So SHLOG.COM will probably go dead for a few days. I doubt I’ll have internet access in a third world country. I’ll catch up when I get back.
-SG
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
JUST WAR PART 1: THE TIMES OF AUGUSTINE
JUST WAR PART 2: THE THEORY OF AUGUSTINE
JUST WAR PART 3: AQUINAS BUILDS
JUST WAR PART 4: UNDER THE INFLUENCE (Crusades)
Aquinas wasn’t just under the influence, to some degree, of Catholic crusaders though. He was also blazing a new trail for Catholic theologians by allowing the writings of Aristotle and other non-theologians/philosophers to color his thinking on God. Specifically, Aquinas was among the first to say out loud that he believed a theology (a belief about God) could be arrived at and supported by natural law alone with no backing from scripture or Church tradition.
Natural law, dumbed down so that I can better understand it, is the common sense or practical considerations behind what’s “right” and “wrong.” It’s the “it makes sense” part within us all. People with no understanding of God, who’ve never read the bible, can know not to steal, for instance. Their reasons for respecting the property rights of others are governed by natural law or instinct. That law causes them not to steal on the grounds that they A) don’t want their property taken away in a reprisal or don’t want to be harmed if they get caught stealing and/or B) think that stealing would hurt the common good, the society and therefore possibly hurt them. So with no influence from the bible human beings, because we all follow natural law within us to some degree, may still ACT “right” if “right” works best for us and our society.
Aquinas admitted to forming his additions to Augustine’s Just War doctrine based not upon scripture (Divine law) primarily, but upon this built-in need to be practical and preserve society and self (natural law). He believed this natural law in us all was inherently good because God put it there. So what works, what is arrived at by observing natural, is divine law, is what God calls “right”. This was the beginning of a new era of practical or natural law theology within Christendom which is still alive today.
What beliefs do we hold that have their basis in natural law more than biblical revelation? I have plenty. When, if ever, is that a bad thing? Why?
San Salvador, Central America perhaps, is just North America fast forwarded or under a magnifying glass. The disparity between the haves and have nots is here in different proportions, in exaggerated contrast. The living and the dying share the smallest nation in Central America, splitting it in half. Fifty percent of El Salvador’s people are impoverished, living on less than the equivalent of $1 a day. The other fifty percent have more. They are living somewhere between getting by and luxury.
But in the Americas the neighbors with more than enough exist in abundance and every poor person knows it. I was slapped today by this realization that in the Americas help IS down the road and needn’t arrive from a far away place by plane. If only the houses we passed on the way to the Compassion International projects today would look beyond their own front doors. If only the patrons of the malls and fast food chains and home improvement stores would keep just enough and spend the rest on fighting poverty next door. If North Americans would look at their daughter’s dance costume as three Salvadorans that could be saved, at their new stereo as six stomachs that could be filled, at a church sound system as ten thousand bodies clothed, fed and revived by the love of God – If only.
