Mutual Conversation and Consolation in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy

What follows is a post I recently wrote for the Vicar's Page on the Saint Peter's Church website:

The last couple weeks have been a real roller coaster for us folks here in New York.  After days without power, near impossible commutes and horrible loss of property and life courtesy of Hurricane Sandy, we faced the incredible stress of a historic presidential election.  Just as the city was beginning to recover from the destruction wrought by a tropical storm system, we're got blanketed in a thick layer of heavy, wet snow.  I feel exhausted and even a bit disoriented after all the life that's happened over the last couple weeks, but I've also found grounding in the amazing example of Christian community I experienced at Saint Peter's this past Sunday.  The contribution of our Episcopal neighbors at the 11a Mass was uplifting and encouraging, as was the wedding during Sion's Misa and the strong images of God's light during the evening jazz service.

The most powerful aspect of Christian community at Saint Peter's this past Sunday however happened both during and in between worship services.  Whether during a sharing of peace or sharing of food over brunch, the Spirit was working to bring the gospel to all of us, through all of us.  In one of my favorite passages of the Book of Concord, Luther reflects this idea of mutual sharing of the gospel in section III.4 of the Smalcald Articles:

We now want to return to the gospel, which gives guidance and help against sin in more than one way, because God is extravagantly rich in his grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world (which is the proper function of the gospel); second, through baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys and also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters.  Matthew 18:20: "Where two or three are gathered..."

Similar to Luther's concept of mutual confession and absolution between friends and neighbors, I heard numerous conversations this past Sunday through which the good news of God's saving grace in Christ was shared.  Some of us who were only marginally affected by the storm heard the harrowing tales of others who were isolated for a time by flood waters.  Stories were told about homes or places of work being destroyed, and the folks who shared those stories were supported by others gathered around the brunch table.  The Saint Peter's community recognized that part of its mission was to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy not just now, but also in the months and perhaps years to come.  Through mutual conversation and consolation, the peace and love of God was shared this past Sunday, and that indeed is good news.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 2): Overnight at Mizpah

What follows is part two of the five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part one here.

My very first trip up one of NH's big peaks took place in 2004 as a young camp counselor taking teenagers to the AMC's Mizpah Spring Hut for Calumet Lutheran Ministries.  Before that first summer I hiked up to Mizpah, the outdoors in general hadn't really ever been my thing.  I had technically been a Boy Scout for years, and even had recently earned my Eagle Scout Badge, but campouts had always been more about building fires, chopping down trees and generally screwing around with a ragtag group of friends than actually enjoying any real hiking through God's creation.  I had also been a camper at Calumet for a few years and counselor the prior summer as well, but even then I was more interested in getting a great tan or flirting with girls than soaking up the untrampled beauty of the White Mountains... when possible, I'd always go on the easy canoe trip with a few campers rather than a hike.

Boy I was goofy.

Upon first hearing I had to help lead an overnight to Mizpah, I was pretty bummed... the trip up the Crawford Path was technically categorized as one of the "hard" hikes Calumet offered, and it additionally meant two days away from my "epic love" that summer.  I was also at nearly the pinnacle of my neo-flower child phase, and thus had great concern about a long day of sweaty hiking messing up my "sweet" bleached-blonde locks.  Eventually though I came to terms with my fate and even heard from a few of my fellow counselors that it was amazing trip. The moss covered forest floor looked like some sort of fairy garden and water from the spring was supposedly the tastiest in the world.

Following my usual practice that summer, I fell asleep during the bus ride to the trailhead despite being responsible for campers.  I awoke as the bus pulled into Crawford Notch near the AMC's Highland Center to an absolutely beautiful valley all around me... I had never, ever even come to close to seeing such wondrous creation during my Boy Scout trips.  As we headed up the Crawford Path, I quickly realized that it wasn't all that bad, even with the heavy pack on my back.  The kids that usually sign up for the hard hike at Calumet tend to actually like the outdoors, and that definitely seemed to be the case on this trip.

A similar "fairy-garden" on Wildcat Mountain.

Right around hitting the Mizpah Cut-off, things seemed to flatten out pretty substantially AND the fairy garden deal started happening.  Long before getting to a summit, seeing such lush, beautiful forest for the first time already made the trip well worth my effort.  Soon enough though we reached Mizpah Hut and I was once again astounded, this time that such things existed up in the White Mountains.  The clearing around the hut was filled with birds that seemingly lacked any fear of people and I specifically remember hearing Uncle John's Band being played by the hut crew as they started preparing dinner.  Calumet couldn't afford quite such plush accommodations for our group however, so we instead found a couple platforms at the nearby Nauman Tentsite.

Eisenhower, Pierce and Jackson from Mount Monroe.

Once we set up our tents on the assigned platforms, the trip's head counselor quickly suggested we take the "optional" Webster-Cliff trail up to the summit of Mount Pierce.  Most of the campers seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea, so we grabbed our Nalgenes and headed up a decidedly steep (although short) trail to the summit.  Despite the tough grade, I felt hungry to reach that summit... a feeling I had never felt before, and I remember it sort of surprising me.  

It didn't take our group too long to summit, and since most of us had never been above treeline before, there was a strong sense of camaraderie through our shared experience.  I felt honored to be part of that moment with my campers and fellow counselors, and we stayed above treeline for much of the afternoon.  Mount Eisenhower and even Washington seemed like a close hike away and  I remember wishing we could keep ascending up the Crawford Path to the top of New England... the whole world seemed in front of us, all-embracing and filled with adventure.  Being a sentimental fellow, I quickly realized how this reflected my own life situation as recent high-school grad soon to go off to college for the first time.

After heading back into the trees and down to our tents, I suppose we had dinner, told a few stories and went to bed... I frankly don't remember much more about the trip.  Looking back on it though, that trail up Mount Pierce helped me recognize two things.  First, I realized that much like the ecstasy of looking forward to the summit of Washington for the first time, the joy I felt during my last summer before college, the joy of having a bright, untarnished future ahead of me, was fleeting.  Second, I comprehended the great hunger for future mountaintop experiences within me for the first time.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Preaching on the Household Codes

For my first preaching assignment at Saint Peter's Church, where I am currently a vicar, I was asked to preach on the texts listed in an older Catholic lectionary used during their Wednesday evening peace mass: Ephesians 6: 1 - 9, Psalm 145: 10 - 14 and Luke 13: 22 - 30.  The Ephesians text, as one version of the household codes, is a very difficult text, and thus I decided to focus on it.  Please provide me with some feedback and I'll incorporate it into my sermon this Wednesday.  Thanks so much!

Source: Wikipedia

While I’ve been a vicar at Saint Peter’s for about a month and a half now, even before starting here, I was very excited to start preaching in a real parish, so you can imagine my joy when I was asked me to deliver today’s homily.  Upon looking up the proscribed texts for today however, particularly the Ephesians’ passage, my joy turned to dismay…  “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” doesn’t seem that bad, but what about “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling…” You heard it right folks, “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.”  Boy, it seems pretty tough to find the good news in a line like that, no matter what follows it...  For my very first preaching assignment of the year, I was asked to preach on the household codes.

The two hierarchical commands of children to obey their parents and slaves to obey their masters in today’s passage of Ephesians, combined with an additional command in the preceding verses for wives to submit to their husbands, form a set of instructions known to Biblical scholars as the household codes.  These codes are reflected in the Epistle to the Colossians and have similar counterparts in 1 Peter and Titus as well.  Despite being written in the Holy Scriptures, one cannot help but find the household codes heartbreaking, particularly in a country still haunted by a dark past, and in a few cases, a current history of slavery, along with contemporary racism and sexism.  Even more heartbreaking is the way in which these verses have frequently been used throughout history.  Many Civil War-era preachers used the codes to encourage African Americans to remain submissive under the dehumanizing yoke of chattel slavery.  Christians often cited them as a way to encourage wives to stay with battering husbands.  Children have been advised by the Church to obey their parents and remain silent about physical and sexual abuse because of an overly simplistic reading of verses like the household codes.  In many Christian communities, similar abuses of the Scriptures and human dignity continue to this day.

My sisters and brothers, perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about the household codes is not just how they’ve been misused throughout history… but how they’ve been misused throughout Christian history… throughout your history and my history… throughout our history.  The oppression and dehumanization wrecked upon the world by the misuse of passages like the household codes prove one of the most rotten spots in the collective story of our faith as Christians... and people know about this part of the story.  This is one of the reasons why many of our churches are shrinking rather than growing.  In my own life this is one of the reasons why many of my friends questioned why I would ever want to be a pastor, and I imagine many of you have been hurt by messages of intolerance inspired by misuse of the Scriptures as well.  The misuse of verses like the household codes is one of the main reasons why many see the Church as an oppressive force in the world, rather than a force of loving-kindness.

There is however good news in tonight’s text from Ephesians, at least if read with the proper historical lens in mind.  You see, for the earliest Christian communities, the structure of the household codes would have sounded very familiar.  Aristotle wrote about the very same three pairs of social classes, as did first century philosophers like Josephus and Philo.  This hierarchical pattern of unilateral control with man always at the top was in fact expanded the throughout Greco-Roman social order all the way up to Caesar.  Patriarchy was thus seen by most as the main source of peace and stability, as essential to society as most of us would consider the rule of law today.

Most critical scholars would agree that Ephesians was written at a relatively later date than most of the Pauline epistles.  Its audience was thus not focused on Jesus’ immediate return but was instead concerned with how to live out their lives in a world where the kindom of God was, as it is today, in-breaking but not fully realized.  While the household codes would have been familiar throughout Greco-Roman society, they never would have been accompanied by admonitions for husbands to love their wives as their own bodies or for fathers to be kind to their children as they are in Ephesians.  The author is thus critiquing the patriarchy, oppression and empire of the so-called Pax Romana by instructing his audience about God’s in-breaking kindom… a kindom where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male or female in Christ.  The author is doing so simply under a rubric that wouldn’t have been as suspicious to Roman authorities.

The household codes therefore do not support patriarchy and oppression in the name of God but rather provide us with an example of what Christianity truly is… a subversive faith.  Yes, my sisters and brothers, the good news in tonight’s Ephesians text is that in Christ all are free and all are equal.  In Christ we have a faith that subverts oppressive power and that turns any unjust social system that would tell us otherwise upside down.  While horrible misuse of the household codes is part of our collective Christian history, so are the stories of subversive saints like the writer of Ephesians, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like Dorothy Day and like the Honduran woman I met last week at the UN, who is organizing rural peasants against an illegitimate administration that is grabbing their land and selling their rivers to trans-national corporations.  Yes, the stories of these and other subversive saints, while instructive, even more importantly demonstrate to us that the kindom of God is indeed in-breaking, and it is a kindom where all are free, all serve one another and all are forgiven.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Your Chance to Weigh In on 'The World We Want'

What follows is a cross-post I recently wrote on behalf of Ecumenical Women at the United Nations.

In 2000, world leaders came together to set quantifiable goals for global development to be reached by 2015 in eight areas. Some have described the goals that came out of that summit, the Millennium Development Goals, as the world’s greatest promise. The good news is that three years out from the goals’ deadline, three targets for reducing extreme poverty, improving clean water access and helping people move out of urban slums, have already been met. While there has been partial progress in some areas, such as moving toward gender equality in access to primary education, there has been little movement toward other targets like reducing the maternal mortality rate.

As the world inches closer to 2015 deadline, the United Nations is also working to analyze successes and failures of the Millenium Development Goal program overall, and most importantly, beginning to discern what’s next after 2015… and that’s where you come in. In partnership with civil society, the United Nations is currently leading a growing conversation with people all over the world who are contributed their input about how we should move forward as one global community. This conversation is happening on the World We Want 2015 web platform, and the topic for this week is gender inequalities.
How can you contribute to the conversation? First, talk with folks (especially girls and women) about gender inequalities in your local community, with a particular emphasis on how such problems are related to inequalities based on income, race/ethnicity, age, location, disability, and sexual orientation. Next, spend some time brainstorming how the post-2015 development framework could address the needs of specific groups of women, especially those from the most marginalized groups and those facing multiple forms of discrimination.

Once you’ve spent some time talking about and reflecting on the topic, you can post your input here. The conversation is currently being monitored by Emily Esplen from Womankind Worldwide, Nicole Bidegain from Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), and Rosa G. Lizarde from the Feminist Task Force (FTF) of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, and they’ll also be responding to your comments. The recommendations emerging from you contributions will be included in a report presented at a high-level meeting in Denmark in February 2013 on inequalities and the post-2015 development agenda. Make sure to contribute soon though, as the comment period for this topic will end on October 24th. Thanks so much for contributing to The World We Want!

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 1): It's Not the Path That Changes Us

A path over Mount Pleasant.

What follows is part one of the five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part two here.

I first heard about having to write this application essay for NH's Four Thousand Footer Club sometime about a third of the way through hiking all of the Granite State's forty-eight peaks, and frankly, I've been trying to figure out what to put down on paper ever since.  I really enjoy pretending to be a good writer and thus I fancied whatever I'd come up with to be a sort of 'road tale,' a frequently employed plot device- sort of coming of age story where the protagonist sets off searching for maturity or meaning and generally ends up finding it... think Huckleberry Finn or in a more contemporary form Easy Rider... even Homer's Iliad, the oldest narrative in the Western canon, reflects much of what's in a road tale.  An inherent part of the road tale though is not just personal growth and discovery, but growth and discovery through experience.  A central message of such stories then is that the road literally does something to you... whether left wounded, reborn or somewhere in between, one cannot help but be changed by the beauties and terrors of the road.

From Mount Tripyramid.

With the grandiose notion of becoming the best White Mountain road tale writer since Brad Washburn lodged firmly in my noggin, I set off on every subsequent hike enthusiastically trying to answer the question "how is this exactly changing me?"  I sure experienced a whole lot of beauty (afternoon clouds billowing over Mount Isolation for instance) and even a couple minor terrors (realizing its almost 9pm with two miles to go coming off Middle Carter with a bum leg and a freshly dead headlamp) but unfortunately, trying to figure out how such experiences were changing me became a distracting and fruitless effort.  Especially after I began solo hiking in the summer of 2011, one could often find me standing on a mountaintop trying to convince an increasingly skeptical inner-self that I was experiencing something profound and life-changing.  After each of these sort of episodes, I'd usually leave the summit both proud of my accomplishment and frustrated that nothing was happening.  I'm currently a seminarian studying to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, so I wasn't seeking just growth or meaning in those mountains, but God as well.  Unfortunately, while I'd often marveled at Her handiwork during my mountaintop experiences, God Herself didn't seem to really want to show up... or at least it felt that way.

On top of Mount Carrigain's fire-tower.

I'm now sitting in a Starbucks in Queens, far away from my cherished mountains.  I deeply miss those stoic old giants... especially over this past summer, they became some my closest friends.  Still though, I can't honestly say the path over them changed me.  I met some amazing folks and some annoying folks, I marveled at God's creation and stood helpless against Her fury, I even learned a lot in the mountains, but no, they didn't change me.  It wouldn't be accurate though to say I wasn't growing and changing during the eight years I took to hike the Whites.  I started my journey on top of Mount Pierce in 2004, freshly out of high school and working for my second summer as a camp counselor for Calumet Lutheran Ministries.  I finished my journey late this past August atop Mount Carrigain's fire-tower, at the end of a longer summer break and two years into a Masters of Divinity degree.  Many of the kids who were with me back in 2004 later grew up to be counselors themselves... some even became good friends of mine.  I definitely changed over that period, perhaps I even came of age, but it wasn't the mountains that changed me.  Rather, my path over NH's forty-eight big peaks ended up providing the space I needed to reflect on my relationship with God, the course of my growth and my relationship with the ever-evolving world all around me.  While not the rule, I do think this is typical... it's not the road, the journey or the path that usually changes us.  Instead, the paths we trod in life simply serve as vehicles through which we can realize the growth (or potential for growth) already stirring within and around us.  What follows then, perhaps isn't road tale at all, at least in the traditional sense... it's a collection of a few stories in which I realized that since the last time I was up above the clouds, things looked pretty different...
 
Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Plenty of Faith in the Heart of the City: Prayer Labyrinth @ 5Pointz

It's nice to see Biggie each morning.

For about a month now, the first hour or so of most of my days here in New York have started the same: The alarm on my decade-ish old flip-phone goes off, I quietly lament to myself that the world starts too early, take a quick shower, put on one of two suits I still feel fairly uncomfortable wearing, run out the door and then down a few blocks to hop on the 7 train that takes me into Manhattan.  I rarely find a seat but can usually still get a good view of the cityscape in front of me through the crowd of other commuters, a view that almost always includes a chance to check out 5Pointz.

I didn't know much about New York before moving here (and probably still don't)  so the first couple times I glimpsed the structure through still sleepy eyes, I figured it was just an old factory covered in graffiti.  Quickly though I realized it was an intentional work of art, a living gallery really, and ever since that time I've spent a couple minutes each morning trying to spot new characters crowded amongst increasingly familiar pieces and signatures.  Frankly, it's a pretty awesome way to start my day.

A labyrinth, bottom left of the picture.

It was only today though that I spotted something at 5Pointz that definitely wasn't expected: a prayer labyrinth!  A type of contemplative prayer space that has been used for centuries by folks of many different faiths (a bunch of medieval cathedrals still have them), the labyrinth isn't a maze but rather a single path one slowly walks, praying at each turn and then quietly listening in the center to what God might be saying back.

The history of 5Pointz, for me at least, makes the presence of a prayer labyrinth there all the more important.  Termed "The Institute of Higher Burning," 5Pointz began in 1993 not only as graffiti art gallery but also an affordable studio space for over 200 hundred artists.  What was formerly an old industrial complex ended up becoming a global meeting place for a diverse mix of artists... rappers, break-dancers, filmmakers and photographers in addition to the folks who have stunningly covered the walls of the place.  Unfortunately, after someone was injured by a fire escape collapse in 2009, the art studios were closed, and it appears that the entire complex will be demolished in September 2013.  That said, boy, for as long as 5Pointz still stands, the prayer labyrinth there provides a powerful testament that faith is for all sorts of folks, not simply the clean-cut or typically defined as well-behaved by society.

While I think things have improved a bit in recent years, for far too long the city in general has been cast as place of vice or that which is "not-Christian" by way too many (usually) well intentioned believers.  Although I had a taste of how inaccurate and unhelpful such views were before moving here, the little time I've spent in New York so far and especially my exposure to sacred spaces like the prayer labyrinth at 5Pointz has further strengthened my conviction that the city is a place where faith is alive, well and constantly dancing into new and exciting forms of expression.  Thanks so much!

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

St. Paul's Chapel & Locating the Sacred: Two NYC Faith Experiences

Halfway through a busy third week of my internship year in New York, I wanted to write a real quick post about two amazingly powerful, but very different, faith experiences I had over the last two weekends.  Despite having grown up only a couple hours north in Connecticut, I never really spent much time in the city until this year... attending a taping of TRL sometime in middle school, an Iraq War protest in high school and a couple Yankees games notwithstanding, I really hadn't experienced New York very much.

St. Paul's Chapel

One of the things I always wanted to do here was to walk around Greenwich Village following all of the old Dylan related spots... cafes he played at, the street where the picture on the cover of the The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was taken... stuff like that (I'm a huge nerd), so I set out to do just that two weekends ago, and Molly was nice enough to come along with me.  It was a pretty nice day out and we definitely had fun in the village, especially hanging out in Washington Square Park, but near the end of the afternoon we still didn't feel quite done... we wanted to experience a little more, so we decided to take a long walk down to the financial district.  While I originally intended mainly to get a picture of me fighting that golden bull statue that is somewhere near Wall Street (I think), we ended up decided to spend some time reflecting near ground zero, and that's when the faith experience started.  Given that it was the weekend before 9/11, we had little success getting tickets to see the new memorial, but we did have a chance to visit St. Paul's Chapel, an amazing place I had somehow never heard of before.  St. Paul's Chapel, part of the Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church parish, withstood the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings across the street and ended up serving as a place of respite for rescue and construction workers, as well as an active memorial site.  Weekly worship still takes place in the space, and it continues to act as pilgrimage place for over a million folks every year.  What an amazingly powerful example of a faith community serving its community.

Alhaji Papa Susso

This past weekend, I had very different but still amazing faith experience while attending a concert in the Queen's Botanical Garden as part of the ongoing Locating the Sacred festival organized by the Asian American Arts Alliance.  It was absolutely perfect weather out... just a little cool with a breeze and surrounded by a beautiful garden I was blessed to be able to listen to traditional music from around the world.  Entitled "The Gift of Wisdom," the event featured four distinct performances: Mala Desai began with a devotional Odissi dance from India, followed by a kora performance by a lively master named Alhaji Papa Susso.  Yoon Sook Park was absolutely amazing playing the kayagum (a Korean zither) and Ikhlaq Hussain followed her up by an epic sitar performance.  The highlight of the evening though, I think, was when all of the performances came out and played together at the end of the show.  Some of the music last weekend was specifically religious in nature, some wasn't, but the best part of the event was that it helped a really diverse crowd explore what can be held up as truly sacred, no matter what faith (or lack of religious faith) one might ascribe to.  I'd highly encourage folks in the city to take part in the remainder of the festival events throughout the city this week... everything's being wrapped up by a choreographed flash mob in Washington Square Park this Sunday.

All I can say in conclusion at this point is, boy, this city if full of opportunity for dialogue and shared experience with persons of really diverse faiths and backgrounds... what an awesome blessing.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Ecumenical Worship, Congolese Religious Leaders and the Politics of Nutrition: First Impressions at the United Nations

Boy, I've had an absolutely amazing first couple days interning at the Lutheran Office for World Community, the office that connects Lutherans worldwide with government missions, non-governmental organizations and other church bodies at the United Nations in New York.  Working on behalf of both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran World Federation, the office gathers information that guides churches in implementing humanitarian responses, discerning public policy responses and other activities.  Outside of typical "first day at work stuff" like setting up emails, getting ID cards and going on a tour of the place, most of my first day was dominating by a visit to the UN by a delegation of religious leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The delegation brought with them heartbreaking stories about ongoing violence in the eastern Kivu provinces of the DRC at the hands of the newly formed militia M23, a group the religious leaders alleged to be armed by neighboring Rwanda's government.  While their message decidedly oversimplified the issue, neglecting to recognize the DRC government's own failings to foster security in North and South Kivu for instance, I did find it extremely empowering to see pastors and other religious taking a leading role in bringing global awareness to horrible situation that gets little press attention, especially in the US.  For a more nuanced treatment of the subject, check out this article.

Yesterday I attended a Working Group on Food and Hunger meeting.  While I definitely realized I have a lot of catching up to do on food and hunger issues, especially in their global manifestations, there was one particular part of the discussion that greatly humbled me.  As an American, I of course think of the concept of "nutrition" as good thing... it means folks not only getting enough calories to eat but the getting the right type of calories.  From the perspective of some folks from developing countries however, we gain the insight that trying to insert more "nutrition" language into this year's upcoming UN General Assembly resolution on food security might look like a code word for Western companies to cash in on things like increased vitamin exports.  According to some in the Global South, using terminology such as "diet-diversification" would make more sense.  While it might seem like a minute detail, it was really interesting for me to hear how at a place like the UN, folks really are working together to foster greater understanding across languages and cultures.

I've also realized how important of an ecumenical function the Lutheran Office for World Community plays... this morning I had a chance to help lead worship for a group that included folks from the Methodist Church, the Mennonite Church, the United Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army (I may have missed some others).  I was pretty nervous not to offend anyone, but we ended up having a great discussion on Romans 2, singing and worshipping our Creator together.  I definitely had never led such a diverse service before, and thus it was a great learning opportunity for me.  Even more importantly though, I can't help but think worshiping together in such a manner each week could greatly contribute to greater ecumencal understanding at all of our respective churches.

Well there you have it... my first impressions at the UN.  Now I'm off to hear deliberations on a small arms treaty and later today I'll attend a meeting on human trafficking... I'm very, very blessed to have such an amazing opportunity for learning at the Lutheran Office for World Community.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.