The Semana Santa, or Holy Week in Spain, is a week-long series of parades and festivities that culminate on Easter Sunday. Particularly notable in Sevilla, Spain (though held throughout the country and in many other parts of the world) the entire city converges. In fact, Semana Santa week is so vibrant and extraordinary in Sevilla that tourists from around the world often come to partake in these festival days.

One of the notable aspects of these celebrations is the parade floats of Jesus and his mother, Mary. Depicting the events of the last days of Jesus’s life, the statues are the main display of every float that traverses the parade route through the city. The statues themselves are from the seventeenth century and are housed in area churches. I was able to see two of these statues in the historic Church of the Savior on a recent visit to Spain.

Perhaps more notable than the floats themselves is the way in which they are carried through the city streets. Every afternoon during the week, these floats are paraded through the streets for hours and hours. The pace is slow and deliberate, sometimes barely moving inches at a time, even as they are gently moving to the sonorous and doleful tones of the accompanying music. The point of the slow pace, which for the uninitiated seems almost ridiculous, is out of reverence for this historic tradition and the events represented in the life of Jesus.

I couldn’t help but parallel the slowness of these parade marches to the hurried pace of my own life. Always in a hurry to get to the “next event,” I am almost uncomfortable with any form of staying still. I remember when I was a child, I couldn’t wait to be a teenager. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t wait to be in college. When I was in college, I couldn’t wait to be a graduate student. When I was a graduate student, I couldn’t wait to be a professional. I look back on those hurried days now and lament that I rushed through them so quickly.

Of course, a society that values efficiency above everything doesn’t help to slow us down. Ours is a world in which “instant” becomes more and more important. The increasing speed of technology only adds to our impatience when things are not achieved instantaneously. I recognize that my own propensity to hurry, coupled with a society that moves at ever-quickening speeds, can be very detrimental for any kind of intentional slowing or cultivation of a reflective life.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Slow Walk to Salvation →

In 2002, a year after the September 11th attacks, I had the opportunity to intern for the Office of Public Liaison at the White House. Organizing briefings for various constituency groups, I learned about several issues impacting the country, including the economy, healthcare, and various bills up for a vote. But the area that really grabbed me was International Women’s and Children’s Issues.

I remember well a briefing we organized for the President to greet about twenty women the administration had brought in from Afghanistan to complete a funded computer training course. The intent and hope was that it would better equip them to obtain a good job when they returned back to their home country. President Bush did not want media present in the room, so there were no cameras or the energy of media activity.

The room was quiet with hushed whispers and when the President came out on stage, to his surprise, every one of the women stood to their feet to applaud him, and then just as quickly fell to the floor on their knees before him, tears streaming down their cheeks in demonstration of their gratitude for what they felt he had given them. He was clearly taken aback, and uncomfortably tried to urge them to stand back to their feet, eye to eye with him.

I will never forget that image. I remember the impression of the appreciation on their faces, faces that revealed this was likely the first time they had felt so respected, and perhaps the first time they had experienced this from a male figure. It was powerful. It was redemptive. It made me want to be part of something that could inspire that kind of expression on the face of another who had been victimized, exploited, underprivileged, or silenced.

But I had no idea how deep, how horrific the problem of human slavery had become around the world. I felt a responsibility and a call to participate, as well as a recognition of the privilege and gift it was to be able to do so. I explored different avenues of opportunity and landed at Wellspring International and the opportunity to help create a meaningful way for individuals to respond to some of the urgent and tragic needs of humanity around the world.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – On International Women’s Day →

In 1943, two hundred and thirty women were arrested as members of the French Resistance and sent to Birkenau. Only 49 survived, but this in itself is remarkable. These women were as diverse a group as could be imagined. They were Jews and Christians, aristocrats and working class, young and old. Yet they were united by their commitment to the French Resistance and to one another.(1) In her book A Train in Winter, Caroline Moorhead reconstructs the story of these women through the journals and memoirs of survivors. Noting the mutual dependence that made the difference between living and dying, Moorhead highlights how the solidarity of these women to one another and to their mutual survival sustained them through unspeakable horror and torture.

In many accounts of Holocaust survivors, the hellish conditions of extreme deprivation and torture drove many to hoard whatever meager resources they could save for themselves. And how could they be blamed? Survival became the only goal—no matter what the cost, even to others. Yet, in most of the cases with these French women in Birkenau, their solidarity toward each other trumped the selfishness that engulfed so many others. As Moorhead writes, “Knowing that the fate of each depended on the others… egotism seemed to vanish and that, stripped back to the bare edge of survival, each rose to behavior few would have believed themselves capable of.”(2) Moorhead recounts that when unrelieved thirst threatened to engulf one of their members in utter madness, the women pooled together their own meager rations to get her a whole bucket of water.

Altruism of this magnitude is seldom seen. Putting one’s own needs first is as natural as breathing, and just as unconscious. Yet adversity sometimes coaxes out the best and the most beautiful in human beings.

In the ancient biblical account of Ruth, three women are left widows, and one, Naomi, has lost her sons as well. Bereft of their economic and financial support, the women instinctively stay together even as Naomi insists they return to their homeland of Moab, where the prospect of finding a husband would be more likely. But the women insist on staying. “No, we will surely return with you to your people.”

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Solidarity →