A Questionable City

“You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.” 

― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Cities are an interesting phenomenon in that human characteristics, like personality, character and reputation can be attributed to them. Paris could be described as at once charming, snobby, magical and gritty. The city where I live, Grenoble, has a reputation of being polluted, crime-ridden, beautiful and liberal.  Sometimes what we think we know about a city is replaced by what we experience after having lived there for a while. I know a number of people who traded the easier pace and natural beauty of this alpine capital for the seduction and stereotypical allure of “living the dream” in Paris. However, the true character of the city, according to their now informed opinion, didn’t live up to the reputation.

Don’t get me wrong. Paris is indeed a wonderful city - to visit. But residing there is another thing altogether. High cost of living and astronomical rent turn many infatuated and aspiring Paris residents into disillusioned suburb dwellers. They went to the City of Lights thinking it would be a life of quaint coffee shops and quiet strolls in the Luxembourg gardens. Instead, reality turned out to be hours upon hours spent among silent, sober and crowded metro cars each day, commuting from one of the affordable, immigrant-filled outlying suburbs to a job of some sorts in a very gray and often cold metropolis. Paris gets on average only 1662 hours of sunshine per year. That means it is sunny only 40% of sunlight hours.

So you never know what you might get out of living in a city until you start living there long enough to allow the veneer to wear off. When it came to France’s presidential elections last week, no one was really sure  what the results would reveal lying in the underbelly of the world’s number one tourist destination. What we thought we knew about Grenoble’s  character would be proven by a very crucial and divisive political vote. Many people I think, held their breath, as the possibility of a misjudgment would only be revealed by that evening’s vote tally, and depending on the result, possibly exposed as well by the illuminating glow of hundreds of cars being set on fire in angry protest throughout many of the city’s troubled neighborhoods.

As it turns out, Grenoble’s longstanding reputation for solidarity with immigrants and foreigners once again shone through. A whopping 83 percent of Grenoble’s residents voted yes for Emmanuel Macron and a resounding no to the xenophobic and fascist National Front party echoed throughout the surrounding  verdant hills and craggy mountains.

Grenoble’s reputation remained intact. A city that has in its history been progressive, tolerant and welcoming to Protestants, Jews, and a host of other immigrants, once again rose to the occasion and defeated hatred and fear.  We thought we knew what we were getting when we moved here and entered into this relationship with Grenoble. And she didn’t let us down. She is at her core a place of refuge and reconciliation. And that is what we as His people, are all about in this crucial hour of suspicion, hate-mongering and tribalism that is polluting our world.  

Thanks for not letting us down, Grenoble. I talk to you as if you have a personality. And as it turns out, you do. And a pretty dependable one at that.

Nameless but not Unknown

The season has begun for the best sport ever created. I love baseball for so many reasons - some  practical and others nostalgic. And I have been a fan of the San Francisco Giants from my childhood until now. Something unique about my team that they share with only two other clubs, each of them as storied a franchise as the other, is the fact that when they play their games at home, the names of the players are not on the backs of their uniforms. I suppose the idea is that when you play for those who are your fans, they already know your name.

Being nameless is not always easy, though. Just ask the guy who let Jesus borrow his donkey so He could make his famous Palm Sunday trek into Jerusalem. That procession with  its thronging, adoring crowds is something that Christian churches still commemorate all over the world. Yet this event would not at all have been possible without this man’s generosity. And we don’t even know his name:

“Jesus sent two of them on ahead.  “Go into the village over there,” he said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.” (Matthew 21:2-3)

Two things stood out to me as I read it this week. The phrase “just say ‘the Lord needs them’” and the word immediately. I’m so impressed by this individual whose selfless and generous devotion to his Master only required a “Jesus needs it” and not only is it given no questions asked, it is given no minute squandered. It didn’t matter that the donkey could have been a primary source of income that day, what with all the visitors in town for the approaching Passover. Don’t worry about the fact that the colt was probably bred with care and not a little difficulty. Jesus is asking for it - so in return there’s no questions asked.

But what is ironic to me, is that this livestock owner’s demonstration of sold-out loyalty to the Savior in a crucial moment of His destiny did not warrant a mention of his identity in the Gospels. The Holy Spirit certainly could have brought it to Matthew’s otherwise limited memory or lame capacity to pass on credit. But we will never know his name.

Just like another key figure in the passion week story. I’m thinking of the landlord of the upper room. This time the disciples sent on ahead to make preparations are told they will find a “certain man”. And all they had to tell him was “The Teacher says my time has come and I will eat the Passover meal at your house”(Matthew 26:19) and it was as good as done. What he gave, no doubt, were utensils, plates, basins, copious amounts of special food, lamb with herbs cooked until tender, and the best wine. And what did he get in return? Water on the floor from twelve pairs of dirty feet having been washed, a table strewn and stained with crumbs, slopped wine, gnawed bones as well as guests hastily departed to leave behind lots of messy dishes, and a room in disarray. And again, no name is recorded.  He too has remained anonymous to this day.

Both these stories beg a question.  Is what I have completely at Jesus’s disposal, all so He can both penetrate the walls of a city and the hearts of its inhabitants? Or so he can have a place prepared for his purposes to unfold? It may never result in my fame, but as long as it results in His, then it’s worth whatever I have to give up. Because in the end, my sacrifice always pales mightily in comparison to His.

God’s prophetic plans are continually unfolding, even today. So He quite often needs followers whose resources are immediately available. Who knows if one of His many important moments has come in our lives or for those around us. He may need what we have to get to a new place or to have a resting place. But regardless, we can be sure of this: He knows our name, even if the crowd doesn’t.  He is your biggest fan. And he never forgets what you forfeit. After all, it’s His applause we should be playing for anyway

Global Student Movement: A Slam

Tag Line
It's a global student movement
A powerful enduement
We're speaking to the nations with a message that is proven
A cause that's meant to move ya
'Cause God is speaking through ya
Either sending us into the world or bringing the world to ya

Our generation
We're so mobile
From Mobile to Guyaquil to Grenoble
We're over being selfish loners or home owners
Blindly ogling more bling and just staying put,
Prone to put down roots
rooting for the home team’s touchdown,
But down in our hearts we're not touched by much stuff anymore
Just down on everything and everyone who don't happen to be hometown.


We can't be patting ourselves on the back
if we keep putting on the back burner
the urgent need of the world
while we only think of how to splurge

like bigger and better bread earners and spurn
the fact that we were called to act and not just stand pat

Stuck in tit for tat
Never straying far from where our friends are at
What I'm saying is that
like stray cats
We're pilgrims made to roam and move and be going places

That may lack a welcome mat
That's in fact where some of us need to be at

The call doesn't encompass poor cop outs
Where we  camp out on our campus quad outcrop
planning how we're gonna pass the weekend
or pass our next exam. Us?
God wants to amp us up to lend a hand,
our good works like a light set out on a stand. Understand
that our vision should be more than a canned rehashing
of the same old stagnant plans of man
that can't fulfill us like planting a church in Afghanistan can
Cause if it's all just about going through the motions
to get a paycheck, then hey you better check
your motives, man.

Are we capable of being deeply moved in our emotions
by owning up to the notion
that our future just might include people who live across the ocean?
OK, then let's shun the self-promotion
Cause It's not about me -o man
That's what's all the commotion
Is about. It's way bigger than that. See

It's global.
As God's spirit blows across the globe,
It'll so both mess you up  and muster new hope
So don't have have the gall
To go and blow off this urge to go
your ego making you go and lowball
the Heavenly Father's higher call

Acting like a know-it-all when all I know is
the cry of the lost bellows to us who are all here below

To give our all so all can know

The all-knowing One

Sure His plan has been moving slowly  but surely
but it doesn't mean I get all surly
Cause God doesn't owe me an apology or explanation
for why the nations are in the state the'yre in -
but surely Goodness and Mercy
are gonna follow us if we set out to be all about
winning for Him this entire world that's been spinning
since he first spun it in the beginning.
He's all about sending us out to be spending
ourselves for what he's planned as an incredible ending

A bonus to a life with a greater purpose he has shown us
So we own up that even though we're mature grown ups here
he's the true owner of us
and of all we dream and do
The onus is on us y'all, it's true

Only cast a glance at the planet
and if you can imagine the plan every woman and man it has on it
That's the tonic. And it's ironic how our narcissism is so chronic
that we care more how look through the lens of a Nikon
than through the eyes of God
emulating shallow pop icons
Our worship of self is at its root demonic
The Internet, we're always on it
Though we've sworn off it
We're like a dog returning to its vomit
hoping someone will like us on Facebook
Look, face up to it, we always show our best face
Unable to face up to our true selves
I can con you but it's unconscionable to conceive that you can
Even contemplate conning the incomparable Creator. Come on, man!

Take a minute to envision this:

we need to have a strong sense of conviction
about the immense future he has for us without limit
which has to include the winning of lost souls in it
And it's infinitely better than we could ever imagine
or can have planned it. And it
is a plan
that's always managed to fashion from among mankind
ample examples of passionate
Christ followers fulfilling God's long-standing
goal that his people refined like gold
wouldn't gloat or self-promote nor admire how much we glitter
but liter-ally
be living letters for all to read with clearer understanding

Creation is groaning for our revealing
While the chic and powerful of this age ignore us
The long-gone cloud of witnesses gone before us implore us
To gain the prize, not being wise in our own eyes
but with a gaze galvanized on Christ
And not on the throw-away plans of a life
where we strive to be liked
Right, like don’t settle for more what’s like discipleship light

This up and coming generation.
It's time to get pumped up about what's coming up.
It should  give us holy goosebumps to know we are not just lumped
together with umpteen generations of students and teens
but we're unparalleled and unique!
God's end times go-to group. This genre of WhatsApp and GoPro gals and gents
bent on capturing  life on the go
Pro-moting the Savior
And acknowledging the call to go to all who don't know
That's something we have to do.
It's too urgent not to, bro.

God will give us the know-how
to make him known as we live sold out and solely for His renown.
That's what's going down.
So no, man, do I plan on napping when God is mapping

out so many amazing things that are about to be happening.

Now.