Gorillas in the Mist

Before heading up to Gulu, Beth and I are taking a little vacation to visit part of Uganda that I have never been to. Beth has wanted to do a gorilla trek since she found out about them a number of years ago, so we decided to go on one. In the southwestern corner of Uganda at the borders of Rwanda, the Congo, and Uganda are mountains where the only living mountain gorillas live. Naturalists estimate that there are only 700 of them remaining in the wild, about 400 in Uganda and the rest in Rwanda and the Congo. They live in families from approximately 8 to 20. Over the course of years, naturalists have habituated the gorillas to human beings. They are naturally afraid of humans, but because of the habituation process they view us as neutral animals.

The way the gorilla trek works is that trackers go into the woods around 7:00 am (gorillas make "nests" of leaves on the ground and sleep from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am) at the place they saw them the previous day.They then try to find where they have moved and when they find them they radio to the head guides their current locations. Those going on the trek are at a central meeting point gather at 8:00 am where we are briefed about mountain gorillas, the trek, and the do's and don'ts of the trek. Then we are divided into groups no larger than eight--there were only twelve this morning so we were two groups of six. (The maximum number of people allowed trek each day is forty.) We then head out tracking different gorilla groups.

The first person is an armed guard then the head guide, followed by the trekkers and porters (people to carry your back pack, etc.) and the last person is an armed guard. Both guards have a machete to cut vines and branches as you proceed. There are mountain elephants and leopards in the forest so the guards are there to protect us should one appear. They would shoot some warning shots to scare them away and only in the most rare circumstances would they actually shoot the animal. I haven't heard of that actually happening.

We ascended the mountain which must have been at a 45 degree angle. We started at around 6000 feet and I don't know how high we went, but we might have ascended 1000 feet or so. It was very slippery because it is the rainy season and it rains almost every day. You can go 1/2 hour and find gorillas or three hours and find them. We were fortunate and found the group we were looking for in 30 to 45 minutes. They were were all feeding on berries in this very tall tree on the slope of the mountain. This group had about 10--two silverbacks and two babies. After about an hour (the length of time permitted to observe them) they came down from the tree and started feeding on the ground. We carefully approached where they were eating and came within 10-20 feet of them. Below is a picture of the silverback leading the group and I took this picture with my iPhone at a distance of 10-15 feet. It was pretty cool!

The whole area is amazingly beautiful. The view from our lodge is spectacular.

Day 40: We Made It!

I liked Levison's summary in today's devotion.
1. We learn that the Spirit's anchor is Jesus.
2. We learn...that what the Spirit says is rooted in Scripture.
3. "The work of the Spirit is not just something brand new. It is something old made new for us. The Spirit...brings ancient Scripture to life."
4. We learn "[t]hat the Spirit--the bride of Christ, as well--is hospitable, generous, expansive beyond belief. The Spirit and the bride don't limit their invitation to the genteel, the sophisticated the self-reliant. They invite anyone who will listen, people with parched throats, people without the right coins in their pockets. It's a dangerous invitation."

What a great way to end.

I hope that those of you who persevered through the 40 Days with the Holy Spirit have not only gained a better knowledge about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, but that you have experienced the Holy Spirit in perhaps a new way. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit works powerfully not only in our own lives, but in the life of UCC Medfield!

Day 39: Almost There

In today's devotion Levison uses probably the most well-known text about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the text that is read at Pentecost every year, Acts 2:1-13. However, he takes a different angle on it from any that I have ever heard. Rather than focus on the event itself, he focuses on what goes on behind the scenes: stayed, prayed, and studied. Once again he wants to divert our attention from the spectacle of the Holy Spirit that some have, to the more mundane, ordinary, ways in which the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit uses our efforts for preparing ourselves to be useful vessels. His prayer is my prayer:

Holy Spirit
Fiery ecstasy
Language maker

Don't let me come unsuspecting to Pentecost
or arrive ill-equipped at ecstasy

Sharpen my will to study
Hone my mind to think
Whet my appetite to learn

And when I part my lips
and breathe out words
god's praiseworthy acts--let them come first.
Amen

Day 38: Make Disciples

Make disciples. "The eleven must go. They must create learners--disciples.They must baptize them. Then they must teach them to follow every last detail of Jesus's commands, not with inventiveness, not with astonishing oratorical flourish, not with awesome miracles." Simple to say, more difficult to do. I am reminded of II Timothy 2:1-2: "You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus' and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well."

So the task at hand is to live the teachings ourselves, and to teach others. What we have the tendency to do, however, is to see Jesus' teachings kind of like a smorgasbord from which we pick and choose. We like the ones about being loved, about forgiveness, but we don't like the hard parts about suffering and surrendering ourselves to him lock, stock, and barrel. 'A dollop of things that make me feel good, and a dab of that which I won't find to inconvenient."

I like his prayer:

Today I pray that you, with the father and the son,
will embrace a shared purpose

To fire in me a passion to obey everything Jesus commanded

To stir in me a passion to teach others

To obey everything Jesus commanded

To forgive me when I don't obey

To forgive them when they don't...

Day 37: Pressure Cooker of Trials

Let's just say that I found this devotion rather bracing. Who wants to suffer persecution? I want the Holy Spirit in my life, but I would prefer the Holy Spirit without persecution, or really without anything seriously negative in my life to be honest. I think Levison gets it just right when he writes,

"So I've come to face it: I tend to like a gospel that tells me everything will work out in the end and that the Spirit will give me everything I need for abundant living in the meantime. I don't want a Spirit that shows up at the last minute to give me words that seal my fate."

The truth be told, I think most of us want the easy road and when it is easy we attribute it to the Holy Spirit. Fortunately, though, God knows better and promises to be with us on the hard road, even the most difficult road when things look bleak. Jesus promises us the presence of the Holy Spirit to give us what we need.

Day 36:Spirit on All Flesh

You have probably heard Joel 2:28-29, today's text, read during worship a number of times. It is frequently read on Pentecost  Sunday. Levison tells us that this text "bursts the wineskins" of Numbers 11 in two directions: horizontal and vertical. I liked his imagery. He notes that this prophecy cuts across all national/ethnic divisions. It also cuts across every division within a given culture. It's pretty radical stuff: "The Spirit melts the glue that holds together society, as we know it, in social tiers." Are we ready for that? It seems to me that in the abstract as a kind of principle it sounds great. But when it cuts into our privilege, and interrupts the way that we are used to living life, I wonder if we are so eager to embrace the Spirit's action.

I find my own self-interest interwoven throughout the things that I believe, and have discovered it is difficult, very difficult to know where my belief is motivated by my self-interest even though I can make a good theological case, or so I think. My capacity for self-deception, which I have mentioned numerous times in my sermons, is nearly limitless.

I loved this stanza of his prayer:

Holy Spirit...

Topple my world with your benevolence
Barrage my barricades with your generosity
Flood my heart with your compassion...

Day 35: Blossoming in the Presence of the Holy Spirit

"For those of us who insist on identifying God's presence in the world, God's absence is tough to stomach. Maybe it's not God's absence so much as Gods withdrawal." I think he captures my feelings about this exactly. I want to experience God's presence in my life--moment to moment--not his absence. I hate it when I feel that God is absent from me. And yet, at times God withdraws for God's own reasons and we need to trust Him even then.

I thought his main point was well spoken in this morning's devotion. Yes, the Spirit is about self-preservation, conservation, and protection. There are promise for this throughout the Old and New Testaments. The Psalms are full of pleas for protection and self-preservation.

But, as Levison points out, the Spirit is not just about self-preservation, conservation, and protection. "The Spirit is about transformation." It is about God's love reaching out into the world and welcoming them in. The Holy Spirit is about outreach, about "Kingdom work," as I mentioned in my sermon this morning. We become transformed along with those "outsiders" who become "insiders." As he captures so well, "The Spirit's presence may allow for protection and comfort, but ultimately the Spirit is about transformation from the outside in--from outsiders who become insiders."