How do our perceptions of people groups who may be of a different color, different faith, or different sexuality affect how we relate to them? Many people can’t recognize their own biases, especially those that lead to injustice and unfairness for others. Recognizing we all have biases and learning how to manage them is an important facet to being a voice for healing in our culture.
We’re exploring how we can do that today on Language of Healing Live at 2:00 pm PDT. I’ll be joined by my coauthors of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation, Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. Evan Taylor, Arnita’s oldest son, will guide our discussion today and others will join us in the Zoom room for a compelling conversation about compassion in a divided world. This conversation is drawn from Chapter 10. This content couldn’t be more appropriate for the environment we find ourselves in today.
Language of Healing Live is a continuing series of bi-weekly video conversations to help people learn to live more generously in this divided world. You can view previous ones here. We will be streaming live at the Language of Healing Discussion Group on Facebook, and I will attempt to post that feed on my Wayne Jacobsen Page on Facebook as well.
Also, Part 13 of Embracing His Glory dropped today over at The God Journey. This is a continuing series about learning to live loved and transformed by the work of Christ. If you haven’t been in on it, start at the beginning. It will make more sense. There is only one more episode coming in this series.
One of the big themes for A Language of healing for a Polarized Nation is the importance of nuance. Political realities in our world push us toward one extreme or the other—binary thinking. It’s all or nothing! Those narratives are killing us.
Last night, I had dinner with a police friend of mine. Hearing him talk about the difficulty of doing his job today broke my heart. If there is any engagement between a person of color and a police officer, it is assumed the officer is racist even if the suspect is a danger to others around him. And, they know if something goes wrong, they will get little support from society or their superiors. Morale is at an all-time low.
I also have conversations with my African American friends and hear the fear in their voices of what could happen to their children if they engage law enforcement. I see the pain in their eyes when they recite the names of young black men and women who have been unnecessarily killed in those engagements.
And we can’t seem to find a healthy way to talk about the problem so we can fix it. Why is it that if there’s a disturbance in my neighborhood, I am reassured when a police officer rolls onto the scene, and others feel threatened, even though they’ve done nothing wrong? More importantly, how do we responsibly fix that?
That’s the conversation we need to be having as a culture—truly listening to each other’s concerns and finding the place to make substantive changes for a better society. But most people aren’t having that conversation, not if you listen to the media or to our political parties. They are caught in the throes of a presidential election, where both candidates and their supporters are using the current unrest to their political advantage even if it further divides us with fear and mistrust. Citizens are using violence on both sides without regard to law and order as we tap dance on the precipice of another civil war.
We had no idea our country would be in such turmoil when we published A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation only a few months ago. We are grateful that many people and institutions have found our book and are using it to explore more wholesome conversations about the issues that divide us. Here’s what we got from one reader recently:
A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation is an amazing book. You not only created the best format for a multi-author book but also created a space where people can have transformative conversations. Our culture desperately needs this message. The practical steps you provided in each chapter gave me hope that change can really happen. We do not have to agree with someone to show compassion, love, and engagement.
Kyle, a reader in Colorado
Over the past few months, I’ve been involved in numerous conversations where people want to explore the nuances of our current crisis and bring people together to find solutions. I’ve done Language of Healing Live Zoom conversations to help explore those options. I’ve been asked to be a guest at many on-line book groups who are studying our book. I am convinced the vast majority of people want to have a different conversation. That’s why over the last few months Bob Prater, Arnita Taylor, and I have worked on a companion to our original book to help people conduct small group discussions about our book.
You asked us to create this resource, and today we are pleased to announce the publication of A Language of Healing Conversation Guide. This new resource will help small groups of people in neighborhoods, businesses, and schools create a safe space for people to talk with each other instead of shouting at each other. It is hot off the presses and is also available at Amazon or in discount bulk pricing at Blue Sheep Media, our publishers.
This guide can help you and people you know…
to speak your own language of healing in your corner of the world,
to reach out to people beyond our regular sphere of relationships, and
to think proactively about how you might respond in difficult situations to disarm the tension and build bridges of honest dialogue and compassion.
Don’t let the media or politicians control the conversation here. Find some people you know and take the risk to discuss this book with them. You’ll be surprised at how it can turn the conversation from one of rancor and fear to mutual respect and understanding.
Remember that song I wrote about a few weeks ago, that uplifting melody playing softly in the background of the chaos going on around us? I hope you’re still listening, leaning into its rhythm, and letting its lyrics soften your soul? The more I give place to that song in my heart, the more easily the lies and illusions that prey on my anxiety or fears dissolve into nothingness.
One of those lies I hear people often struggle with is, “I should be further along by now.”
The enemy has so many ways to accuse us, and he is most despicable when he uses our best hungers against us. Of course, we all want to be further along than we are. Don’t you wish that your motives were pure, that you always know how to respond in any situation, that your thoughts and actions were always laced with grace, and that you knew the answers to all the questions banging around your head? I know I do.
But none of that is more critical than being settled in his love and letting it have its work in you. Notice how that one little lie will immediately draw you out of that love and focus on your failures and struggles. To fall for it is to submit yourself to the law again and to feel the crushing defeat of your inability to perform to whosever expectations you hold for yourself.
His song invites us into the moment to celebrate the process of transformation he is working in each of us. Jesus had no expectations that you would be flawless today. You’re not. I’m not. Flawless is still out beyond the horizon somewhere, but that doesn’t mean you’re not perfectly in process. He already sees you as his beloved son or daughter, knowing who you are in him and what you will yet become in his love. He knows the weaknesses that still entangle you, the lies you can’t yet see through, and the choices that still draw you into the darkness. He loves you nonetheless. He looks at this day as another opportunity to walk with you into a bit more of the light of his freedom and glory.
This was always going to be a process because he delights in reshaping your heart and renewing your mind. That process unfolds best when we celebrate it, rather than give in to the frustration of battles not yet won, hopes not yet fulfilled, or brokenness not yet mended. He is already healing. He is already opening the eyes of your heart, and he is pouring his strength into you.
So your words, thoughts, and actions will not be perfect today. You’ll be weak at times, and have those awkward moments where you hunger for wisdom you don’t yet have and for justice you can’t see. But you can see him, and yourself perfectly in his process of winning you into his love and teaching you how to ride its currents through the circumstances you’re in.
“But can’t I mess up this process?” some ask. Of course. We all can and have. But Jesus is bigger than our mistakes, our delays, and even our stubbornness. If he isn’t stronger than those things, what hope have we? He understands our fits and starts, and each day is willing to begin afresh, drawing us ever more into his glory. As the saying goes, “The best time to plant an oak tree was twenty-five years ago; the next best time is to plant one today.”
Regardless of where you’ve gotten lost in days gone by, today you can quiet your heart, tune into his glorious melody, and let your life fall into its rhythms.
Rather than berating yourself for not being further along, rejoice in how far you’ve come. Instead of being frustrated with your weakness, put your hope in his strength at work in you. Instead of regretting where you’ve missed him, be grateful for what he has shown you and what he has transformed in you.
Relax in the process, and you’ll find yourself making better progress.
I look forward every year to our time in the Sierras where my 95-year-old father lives. I love everything about this area—the pines and cedars, granite boulders, the blue water of an alpine lake, a starry night sky clear enough to see the Milky Way with ease, wild lupin, the crunching of dirt, pine needles, and sticks underfoot, and the scent of buckbrush wafting on a gentle breeze. My dad and I saw a deer with a young fawn the other day scurry into the trees.
No place on earth beckons my heart as much as the High Sierras. For me, this is one of those “thin places”, where the distance between the temporal and the eternal doesn’t seem so distant, and it’s a bit easier to sense God’s presence in the Creation and my own heart. I think clearer here, listen better here, and I’m sure that’s aided by trying not to do too much “work” here. These are our days of vacation and restoration.
We also have a lot of fun with family—long walks with Sara, a conversation with my dad, or enjoying my daughter and her family as they come up to spend a chunk of time with us. We enjoy playing in the lake, enjoying games in the cabin, and swapping stories over dinner.
That’s why things have been quiet here and why I’m backlogged on answering emails. I’ve got little time or inclination to spend lots of time on a computer here. I did, however, just finish a re-reading of Ruth and how God does such good work out of the messes we make. God didn’t want Israel to intermarry with nonJewish people in their area. Nonetheless, they do. One man moves to Moab and his sons marry Moabite women. After a number of years, the father and both sons tragically die. Because of the faithfulness of one of those wives, Ruth, to her widowed mother-in-law, God graciously opens a new door for her. She marries Boaz, a wealthy Israelite, and then she becomes part of the lineage of David, and ultimately of Jesus. I love that about God. He is able to work amazing triumph out of great tragedy, even those of our own making.
Here are some other things that might be of interest to you:
Language of Healing Live graphic with book cover
Tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be joining a live Zoom session tomorrow at 2:00 pm PDT with my coauthors of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation, Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. You won’t want to miss this one. Lisa Vitello, an actress and facilitator of CultureBrave will guide us through a conversation about Chapter 13, Sharing the Table. Lisa hosted a release event for our new book in Los Angeles when it came out last November. What was planned as a two-hour session went on for almost six. She asked us some of the most incisive questions we’ve encountered to date. It will be a joy to speak with her again.
Just a reminder that Part 10 of Embracing His Glory will drop tomorrow over at The God Journey. This is a continuing series about learning to live loved and transformed by the work of Christ. If you haven’t been in on it, start at the beginning. It will make more sense. That will be the last new podcast at The God Journey until I get back to the office. I hope it is helpful for you.
Finally, we are still needing some help with Kenya. The hope is to drill two more wells for two neighboring tribes to the ones we helped over the last five years. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in more detail about the need and why we want to help to protect the resources we’ve already provided to other tribes in the area. The picture at left shows some of them the aid we were able to immediately send them for food, medicine, and protection from the coronavirus. We have taken in about $34,000 of the $71,000 we need to provide aid and drill the two wells there. As is our custom, Lifestream does not take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Every dollar you send us gets to Kenya, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320, or phone us at (805) 498-7774.
We never take for granted the people who read these posts and carry us on their hearts as we continue to do what God asks of us in the world. We are blessed by your love, sustained by your prayers, and grateful for your generosity.
But yesterday, I got an email from a friend in Oregon with a picture of two bouquets of roses. Mark Warner is a former pastor and former alcoholic who knows the dark side well. His email was titled: Why I Take Flowers to Two 95 Years Olds at the Retirement Center.
The words that followed were some of the most profound I’ve ever read in such a short reflection:
I do not do these things to fill up something lacking inside my psyche, to be nice, or to respond to the popular saying “WWJD.” I give and serve so I am not consumed by the hatred I see swirling around me and risk becoming what I see in others.
We are in a dark time and hatred runs rampant. The image of God placed inside me will be destroyed if I give in to the darkness. Over the years, many have hated me, many times people have tried to derail my career and, at times, my life. To save my own soul I cannot give in to the hatred, to the evil.
Serving and giving is the way for me to life. Jesus said we are to love our enemies, not for a misplaced sense of revenge or to prove our own moral superiority, but so that we are not consumed by the same spirit that possesses them. For that I need His miraculous help. Then, I am able to say with Tiny Tim in Charles Dicken’s The Christmas Carol, “…may God bless us everyone.”
Love wins my friends. Every time. Especially in me.
I’ve never seen a time when fear and anger have so dominated a nation, where people strike back tit-for-tat and feel justified in attacking people they consider “the other.” This piece set my heart at rest in his love in a delightful way. We don’t have to join the fight in our world and demean others, but can yield to a grander call from a more powerful kingdom inviting us live to a different rhythm so that we will not be consumed by the evil that seeks to destroy us all.
Live loved… and then love… freely. (John 13:34-35)
Love freely and extravagantly, to people who don’t deserve it, and in places you’re not obligated to do so.
Instead of adding more anger or fear to the turmoil of our times, what if we added more compassion? One of the attributes of a peacemaker is cultivating a compassionate heart for those who are different from us, especially those who are marginalized. Even Jesus said, that “mercy triumphs over justice.”
We’re exploring how we can do that today on Langauge of Healing Live at 2:00 pm PDT. I’ll be joined by my coauthors of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation, Bob Prater and, Arnita Taylor. Anna LeBaron, the author of The Polygamist’s Daughter, will guide our discussion today and others will join us in the Zoom room for a compelling conversation about compassion in a divided world. This conversation is drawn from Chapter 7 of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation. If you can, give it a read and come join us. But either way, come join us. This should prove to be a fun and illuminating conversation.
Language of Healing Live is a continuing series of bi-weekly video conversations to help people learn to live more generously in this divided world. You can view previous ones here. We will be streaming live at the Language of Healing Discussion Group on FaceBook, and I will attempt to post that feed on my Wayne Jacobsen Page on Facebook as well.
Also, Part 8 of Embracing His Glory dropped today over at The God Journey. This is a continuing series about learning to live loved and transformed by the work of Christ. If you haven’t been in on it, start at the beginning. It will make more sense.
Can you hear it? It’s the Song of the Ages, still playing beneath the virus and all that’s changed in our world. It is fresh from your Father’s heart, inviting you into his reality.
It’s not the loudest song in the wind. Fears of the virus and daily body counts will ring louder. The rancor of social hatred will drown it out, and it can easily be swallowed up by the discordant strains of fear and anger that dominate these troubled times.
But beneath it all, his song still plays, as certain as the rising sun, more triumphant than the most exquisite symphony.
You won’t be able to focus on it arguing about masks, or fretting over the next election. You won’t hear it speculating about conspiracies or putting your hope in yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecies about a coming revival. You won’t find it groping for certainty in your imagined future.
You have no idea what is to come, and neither do all those voices. The honest ones will tell you that. Your certainty now has to be in Jesus and him alone. All others are mere illusions. They may comfort for the moment, but when they fail you, how deep will that pain be? Circumstances, both favorable and unfavorable, will come and go. The only refuge is to abandon yourself to the amazing love of a gracious Father and seeing his divine purpose unfolding around you. He will never let you down.
Come away, my beloved!
There! Did you hear it?
Maybe it was just a few notes, but even a bit of it will begin to breathe hope into your exhausted heart. You’ll recognize it as the soothing melody inviting you beside his quiet waters where peace and tranquility will wash over your fear and grief. Linger there, leaning lean away from anxious thoughts and angry voices, both internal and external.
His song carries a different rhythm. He is enough. You are deeply loved.All of Creation is still in his hands.
There’s no fear or frustration in his song. Its soft and lilting tones draw you more deeply to his heart, where fear no longer thrives. It allows you to embrace a reality far more consequential than anything we see with your eyes or hear with our ears. It calms your heart with the confidence that God is big enough for this, too.
None of this has caught Jesus by surprise. He has not abandoned you to your own devices. His deliverance does not await some future day. Jesus reassured us that his Father is always working. That includes in you… today. He has a way through this for you, even if someone you love gets the virus. Even if your business does not survive. Even if, our culture comes crashing down around you. Even if this is your time to join him in a kingdom that knows no end. Even if all this goes away in the next few months.
He has plans you haven’t begun to consider.
Come away, my beloved.
His melody is an invitation, not a compulsion. You’ll find it more clearly in that quiet place in your soul where Jesus makes himself known. It may take a while to tune your ears again to his melody and hold it in your heart. It’s worth the time. You’ll know you’ve found it when your heart takes a deep breath and begins to find its rest in the unforced rhythms of his grace.
You can’t see that, you say? Well, you don’t have to. You only need to see him. Take his hand and follow his lead the best you sense him today. Wake up tomorrow and find that song again.
Everything else in this world will seek to knock you off this melody, drawing you back into its clamor. You don’t have to go. You can keep coming back to the quiet waters and bathe yourself there. That’s where you’ll have the wisdom to live through each day’s challenges without fear of your imagined future. You’ll know how to respond prudently to the virus’ presence in our world, and find compassion for others around you.
When you’re at peace in turmoil, his song will flow through you, too, amplifying it in your corner of the world. Then others will find it easier to hear and perhaps find their way to his peace as well.
We were given an incredible assignment by the Lord to help rescue 120,000 people from certain starvation in North Pokot. We announced a couple of months ago that we had completed that task, and the four villages were now functioning on their own with the resources we helped them develop. Over these past five years, I have been so grateful for your generosity that allowed us to do that. As we’ve shared in the past, not only have they been helped practically, but the Gospel has also flourished among them. This is due to the generosity of so many of you that have given so freely for their salvation.
We had hoped now to move on to other things. Lifestream isn’t a missions organization that cultivates regular giving to these kinds of projects. We were acting out of love for people we knew on the other side of the globe who had desperate needs. Your generosity to help as continually overwhelmed us with gratitude, and I’ve never wanted to take advantage of it. However, I’ve been asked again if we could once more stand in the breach for a desperate people. After prayer and consultation with others, we have decided to see what God might provide for two more tribes.
The Namaru village has 250 families in it, and the Kase village has 180 families with a total of around 2700 people. Like the other tribes we’ve helped, they have been nomadic for centuries. They settled in this area after our project began in Pokot and subsisted off a nearby river. They also responded to the Gospel earlier and have been seeking Jesus for some answer here. When their river dried up, they started walking seven miles to get water from the Ngetut and Compass/Olorwa villages. Already starving, they have returned to beg for food at harvest. These agricultural projects, however, aren’t large enough for these new tribes as well. And, having no resources to battle COVID-19, they are putting the other villages at risk. Without some kind of help, these people may destabilize what we’ve already accomplished in the region.
They need $11,400 in immediate food and medicine.
Someone I know, who has been deeply involved in this process, sent a gift yesterday to help us do that and a bit more. Our contacts in Kenya, Michael and Thomas, have asked if we could drill a well in each village so each would have their own water supply. Water is life in Africa. They feel this is essential to completing the work there to free the original tribes to continue their success. I told them I would ask you to see if there are enough resources from my audience to do that. Each well will cost $29,000 each. We already have a considerable sum toward the first one. We are not being asked to commit to a more extended project here as we did in the other villages, though if someone is out there that has it on their heart to do so with these families, please let me know. They would certainly welcome the help, and we would certainly set that up.
I am asking for your help to raise an additional $40,000 to drill these two wells. I know it seems like this can go on and on as other tribes find out and want help, but we have been assured that these are the last two villages.
As is our custom, Lifestream does not take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Every dollar you send us gets to Kenya, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320, or phone us at (805) 498-7774.
Thank you for your prayers about this and whatever you might be free to send to help us help them.
I heard this from a friend the other day and loved what it unveiled about his heart.
“I am only beginning to realize how rude my faith made me.”
I love that. As people grow more tender in his love, they begin to recognize how adherence to religion doesn’t transform us. Instead, it just reroutes our selfishness into other expressions.
Now, he and I both know that real faith doesn’t make anyone rude. False faith does, however, because it makes us feel morally superior to anyone who doesn’t work as hard at their religion as we do. It divides the world into a home team and an away team, and that almost gives us permission to treat harshly those who don’t believe or do the things we think they should.
Paul warned the Corinthians about this very thing, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (I Corinthians 8:1)
That’s what I love about the people I know who are being transformed by a love that rewires them from the inside. They are less rude and more forbearing, less arrogant and more humble, slower to take offense and more open to reconciliation, and they are less self-focused and more generous with others, especially the away team.
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Here are some other things going on this week that might interest you:
This Sunday, July 19, I will host another God Journey After-Show at 10:00 am PDT. This is an open conversation about our life in Jesus and some of the recent themes we’ve been exploring on the Lifestream blog and on The God Journey. If you’d like to join us in the Zoom room, you can email Wayne for a link. We’ll let in as many as we can, and the rest can stream it live on the God Journey Facebook Page.
If you haven’t yet discovered my new series over at The God Journey called Embracing His Glory, I’d encourage you to check it out. I’ve done six twenty-minute reflections about how God transforms us in his love to let his glory be revealed in the world around us. I love how the Gospel of John has illuminated so much of the work God has been doing in my heart over the past twenty-five years learning to live in the Father’s love. You can use the links below to listen in.
I will be doing a live Zoom session today at 2:00 pm PDT with my coauthors of A Language of Healing for a Polarized Nation, Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. Today’s conversation will focus on themes from Chapter 3 about the pluses and minuses of tribalism and how it affects our life. It is so easy to think only inside of our own tribe and be oblivious to the experiences of others outside of it.
Also, Part 6 of Embracing His Glory dropped today over at The God Journey. This is a continuing series about learning to live loved and transformed by the work of Christ. If you haven’t been in on it, start at the beginning. It will make more sense.
Finally, we are still needing some help with Kenya. The hope is to drill two more wells for two neighboring tribes to the ones we helped over the last five years. A couple of weeks ago, 
