SOUTHBOROUGH L’ABRI PRAYER/NEWSLETTER
Winter, 2007
49 Lynbrook Road, Southborough, MA 01772

January, 2007

As I think about the news now, between Christmas and the new year of 2007, I find it heavy to listen to, watch or read about, almost oppressive. There are so many areas of serious trouble in the international news that they seem to dwarf domestic problems, which are serious enough in themselves. Our country is in a critical place, with few good options in Iraq. Things are difficult in Afghanistan. There are crises also in Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, not to mention Palestine and Lebanon. And then there is Iran and North Korea. You could keep listing more places of political instability, unpredictability and vast human suffering before going on to issues like climate change and its implications.

We face the new year with its developments and frantic newsflashes just after having celebrated Christmas. I am struggling to maintain the perspective of Christmas at least until New Years Day, maybe a little longer into the new year. How can we do that?
More than any other people in world history, we are bathed in full-color, instant news from all over the planet. What makes the vast majority of our “news” is conflict, disaster or catastrophe of some sort in some place far enough away so that we cannot take direct action to help. We have begun to hear the term “compassion fatigue” more often. We can begin to feel that constant worry is more or less required of a caring person. Perhaps worry itself is felt to be in some way virtuous. As early as the 1950s, David Riesman in his book, The Lonely Crowd, described what he called “inside-dopesterism”. It is a response to the feeling of helplessness, impotence before powerful and unpredictable events. Inside-dopesterism is the compulsion to be “in the know”, to have the “inside dope”, to be somehow an amateur expert, with mastery of vast amounts of information about those unpredictable events. It is compulsive because it is trying to compensate for powerlessness.

As we bring the reality of Christmas to lift the oppressive weight of the new year’s news, we can start by remembering that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Ps 24:1), and although mountains may collapse into the sea and kingdoms stagger and totter, “he utters his voice, and the earth melts.” (Ps.46:2,6) It is true that we are substantially powerless. This is not new news. We’d better get used to it. It need not put us into a tailspin of anxiety or neurotic compensations. It is God’s world. God is not powerless. After making it clear that the solidest things in the world could all change, the Psalmist said, “Be still and know that I am God.”(Ps. 46:10)

There have been few things less predictable by human wisdom or controllable by human power than the birth of the tiny child in Bethlehem that we have just celebrated. He was the “Alpha and the Omega”. He was the “Lord God who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8) The celebration of Advent includes his coming to Bethlehem but also his future coming at the end to complete his defeat of evil. It is this God who calls us to trust him for the news, wherever it is. He is the one to whom we can and should pray for all kinds of people and things, near and far that are beyond our personal influence. By being able to talk to God, we have an influence that we may never understand or know.

We need to be responsibly informed of what is going on in the world, but not so pre-occupied with faraway catastrophes that we become paralyzed. C.S. Lewis wrote, “I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.” God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.

The autumn term went well. We had a large number of students staying for the whole or nearly the whole term, which helps every part of the work. This time they got along well together right from the beginning, and worked through tensions and conflicts in really constructive ways. The group averaged a little younger than usual, but was made up of serious people, seriously grappling with God, faith and life. Each term we discover that what arrives as faith often has to be seriously reconsidered and carefully measured against scripture for there to be hope and healing. We keep thanking God that his salvation is to make us more human, not less.

Both Sarah and Taylor got into doing more tutoring this last term and were both very helpful. Amanda, who is Sarah’s sister, was our only helper. This was heroic, especially because she was our only helper. It involved serving many, many meals and she did a great job with tireless cheerfulness.

Pray for Trevor and Autumn, a young couple with their baby who were with us. Pray for the finances for Trevor to go to college.

Pray also for Randy, a pastor who was with us and who has written to say that he has just been diagnosed with multiple melanoma. Pray for him and his family.

Give thanks not just for last term but for past students, sometimes many terms ago who have kept in touch. God is faithful. L’Abri is not the source of strength and growth. God is. And God goes with us wherever we go.

Mardi’s health continues to be pretty good. She is preparing to lecture at the L’Abri conference in Rochester, February 16-18, along with Sarah and Ben and Nickaela. In the break time I had surgery again on my right shoulder. Please pray that I will be able to use it fully. Pray also for a lecture I will do on cynicism at “Congress 2007” a large conference in Boston on Feb. 3. Pray for my mother with Parkinson’s disease.

The Morrells are doing very well, with Luke and Nate enjoying school and as they get older, playing more of a part in life at L’Abri. Pray for Sue’s father in Australia who has a small esophageal cancer, which is being treated conservatively.

Please pray for our finances, which are pretty lean at this point. Our fixed costs keep climbing, especially health insurance, electricity and oil.
Pray for our two helpers for next term. They are Jonathan Mingori, who was here a couple of years ago and Shannon Chase, who was with us just last term.
Pray also for next term’s students that they may be open to God’s truth and transforming power.

As we look into the more distant future, pray for our worker situation here. Sarah will be leaving after the winter term and is praying about graduate school. Taylor will be leaving after the summer term for graduate school in theology. In May we will be joined by our son, Ben and his wife Nickaela who will have finished most of their study at Regent College in Vancouver (the rest to be finished by extension). They will move into what is now Sarah’s apartment. We are all thankful to God for the amazing timing of these changes working out. We are excited to have Ben and Nickaela join us. Please pray for this really important time. As workers change, they cannot be “replaced” as if parts of a machine. Each change reshapes the whole branch.

Pray for our L’Abri conference which will be in Portland this summer, July 26-29. The contact person is Megan Palau, 12375 SW Foothill Dr., Portland, Oregon 97225 or meganpalau@msn.com

Pray for our country, especially for our leaders’ decisions in the next few months.
May we learn to take Christmas with us all the way through 2007. To get help in doing this, I will close with the perspective of the Christian artist, Georges Roualt, “He who has forgotten how to laugh is only waiting to die.”

Dick Keyes