A letter from Burkhard Paetzold in Germany
December 18, 2007
Dear old and new Friends,
While starting to read the Christmas story again in Luke 2, my eyes wandered up to the end of the first chapter. I spotted John the Baptist’s father Zechariah’s song in which he foresaw that John would go before the Lord and prepare the path to Him so that His rising sun would come to us: “to shine on those who live in darkness, under the cloud of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1: 79). What a prophecy!
Let me write about my experiences during Mission Challenge 2007. With 47 other PC(USA) mission workers, I had the privilege this October to travel for four weeks to different presbyteries in the United States. (See the full success story at the Mission Challenge '07 Web site.) Since I’m German and based in Germany, this was a priceless chance for me to connect with local churches in the denomination.
On my travels, I tend to search out cultural differences as well as similarities. I was scheduled to visit presbyteries in North and South Dakota and Iowa and to spend a week in Dakota Presbytery, a non-geographic (Native American) presbytery.
My first and foremost experience in all these presbyteries in the Midwest was great hospitality. Probably not many people come from far away to visit this sparsely populated area. I felt very welcome. People were both very open to share and curious to hear news from other parts of the world. Furthermore, I saw an amazing wealth of voluntarism in churches for social, charity, and other projects carried out with a great deal of passion and commitment. I’ve seen even in the smallest communities good schools and amazing libraries. ( I always bring home a collection of good library memories since my wife, Christine, is a librarian!)
In contrast to these positive experiences, a question I am always asking myself is about the visible waste of natural resources, e.g. by driving large SUVs, running air conditioners even in the fall, and seemingly using throw-away plastic dishes for almost every meal. I heard explanations like, “We have long distances,” “A public transportation system doesn’t make sense,” “Small cars would be too inconvenient,” and “We live in a wealthy country with almost unlimited resources, we have always been able to afford these things.”
When I look at the influence our way of life has on millions of “the least of these” in our globalized world (poor people in both rich and poor countries), I wonder if the immoderate artificial light of our business centers, our 24-hour shopping malls, and splendid Christmas decorations are really “light” or rather life in “darkness, under the cloud of death.” Is this the death of those for whom man-made climate change is not just a question of convenience but a question of survival, like people living in flood plains adjacent to the world’s oceans? Or, if we don’t go that far, are we not borrowing all this from our grandchildren? Will they not have to pay the bill for our consumption?
I had many good and deep conversations while on my trip. And when I spoke about my own country and about German guilt associated with the murder of Jews and Roma (Gypsies), some of my white American hosts responded, “We as Americans of European descent have reasons to talk about our guilt towards Native Americans, as our ancestors’ greed almost exterminated them. And, what of our guilt towards the ‘Two-thirds World,’ where our ‘modern reign’ and Western lifestyle may kill them as well?”
I went to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Indian Reservation, where I was invited to a sweat lodge of my Dakota Indian hosts. We were praying together and I was amazed with the connectedness between Presbyterian and Native American spirituality.
I noted a certain group emphasis (the family, tribe, or clan) among Native Americans that I regularly encounter within Roma communities in Europe. My Roma friends would say, “Sharing is more important than saving.”
Nature is not something to be conquered, because we are a part of nature. Isn’t it our task to adapt, to mollify, to seek harmony with God’s creation around us? Spirituality with this world view isn’t something reserved just for Sundays, but it is interwoven into our everyday life. If we take something from nature, we must sacrifice and return the gifts of nature. Time is not a straight line of competition that leads to “progress,” (which might be just another word for “more profit,”) but a cycle of giving and taking.
I wonder if this spirituality is dying out with an older generation? Too many cultural roots have been uprooted. It seems that a healthy alliance of Christian and Native American spirituality, which some of the sensitive first “white” missionaries were still witnessing, is for some of the Dakota pastors nothing more than a dream.
Still we have hope that Christmas is coming and that Christ Jesus “will shine on those who live in darkness, under the cloud of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
May the peace of Christ be with you all.
Burkhard
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 156.
