Saturday, September 04, 2010
Book Review: This Flowing Toward Me
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' (Matt 25:37-40)
Marilyn Lacey’s book about working with refugees around the world is, at its core, a reflection on the passage above: what it means to encounter God in the stranger. This Flowing Toward Me is quite different from many other books I’ve read about refugee issues. While many books focus on the refugee experience itself (Dave Egger’s What is the What allowing us to see things from a refugee’s point of view), this is a reflection on working with refugees, and what they have to teach us.
While Lacey claims that she is not a theologian, she addresses difficult theological questions that arise from working with the displaced. It’s a refreshing perspective that stems from inter-personal contact -- whether hospitality can be limited or not is addressed from this angle. The literal centrepiece of the book is Lacey’s interview with one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, a brief and poignant reminder of what people loved by God experience on their journeys. In working with refugees everyday, I there is the temptation to become hardened to these stories. This book serves as a reminder to meet refugees as individual people with their own unique stories, allowing them to impact our own.
Lacey writes in a very personal way. Her first encounter with refugees seemed accidental, though actually a providential meeting that would lead her to refugee camps from Africa to Asia. Here she learned, in her own words, “a new way of loving.” Her writing is accessible and unencumbered by jargon (spiritual or political) and disarmingly personal. This is not to say that the book is flawless: I found some of her stories about odd foreign foods and insects a bit tedious in places, but that’s a minor criticism in an otherwise thought provoking, amusing, heartfelt, and challenging book.
In reflecting about God arriving in the guise of the stranger and applying this to Rev. 3:20, Lacey comments:
…the passage took on a literal, street-level meaning. Looking at the problem of the stranger, both in Thailand and back in the United States, I began to see that if I were to continue to work with refugees, it could not be merely a ministering to them, as it had been initially, but a welcoming of the God who comes to meet me in them. Through these strangers, sometimes distressing, sometimes achingly beautiful, sometimes scary, God was knocking at the door. Whether it was a Hmong refugee or an urban homeless man, no matter. God was knocking.
Marilyn Lacey’s book about working with refugees around the world is, at its core, a reflection on the passage above: what it means to encounter God in the stranger. This Flowing Toward Me is quite different from many other books I’ve read about refugee issues. While many books focus on the refugee experience itself (Dave Egger’s What is the What allowing us to see things from a refugee’s point of view), this is a reflection on working with refugees, and what they have to teach us.
While Lacey claims that she is not a theologian, she addresses difficult theological questions that arise from working with the displaced. It’s a refreshing perspective that stems from inter-personal contact -- whether hospitality can be limited or not is addressed from this angle. The literal centrepiece of the book is Lacey’s interview with one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, a brief and poignant reminder of what people loved by God experience on their journeys. In working with refugees everyday, I there is the temptation to become hardened to these stories. This book serves as a reminder to meet refugees as individual people with their own unique stories, allowing them to impact our own.
Lacey writes in a very personal way. Her first encounter with refugees seemed accidental, though actually a providential meeting that would lead her to refugee camps from Africa to Asia. Here she learned, in her own words, “a new way of loving.” Her writing is accessible and unencumbered by jargon (spiritual or political) and disarmingly personal. This is not to say that the book is flawless: I found some of her stories about odd foreign foods and insects a bit tedious in places, but that’s a minor criticism in an otherwise thought provoking, amusing, heartfelt, and challenging book.
In reflecting about God arriving in the guise of the stranger and applying this to Rev. 3:20, Lacey comments:
…the passage took on a literal, street-level meaning. Looking at the problem of the stranger, both in Thailand and back in the United States, I began to see that if I were to continue to work with refugees, it could not be merely a ministering to them, as it had been initially, but a welcoming of the God who comes to meet me in them. Through these strangers, sometimes distressing, sometimes achingly beautiful, sometimes scary, God was knocking at the door. Whether it was a Hmong refugee or an urban homeless man, no matter. God was knocking.
0 comments :
Post a Comment
