Coping and Conquering in Uncertain Times

Hello, here we are, I'm Dick Foth with my friend Kirk Noonan and it's March the 18th, 2020. And we're having a conversation in these next couple of podcasts about two things. One is about life in particular at this moment as in our culture that's been affected by a pandemic and then life in general because I'm getting hold and I ask Kirk if he would respond to that and I'll explain that just a little bit later. But for starters, Kirk, thanks for being with me. I appreciate it. It's an honor. Kirk, you are the... Give me your title. So I'm the Chief Innovation Officer for Convoy of Hope. Okay. And right now, we're sitting in the Innovation Lab for Convoy of Hope, which is located on the Otterbox campus in Fort Collins, Colorado. Okay. And Convoy of Hope does water around the world. Just give us the three or four things. Yeah, we feed children over 300,000 children who respond to disasters such as the coronavirus. We do women's empowerment, we do ag programs, we do community events. The whole goal is to give people help and hope during desperate times. Okay. Well then you're perfect for this moment. There we go. And usually I'm the guy asking the questions and in these two podcasts, this one today and then one that will be released in a few days, I'm going to turn the tables and say, why don't you ask the questions and we'll just have a conversation and go from there. So let's talk about these times, all the stuff going on. Yeah. You go. You're on. So I mean, just one thing, just coming in here this morning, you know, Fort Collins is in New York. Good. It is busy around here, especially in downtown and you notice, I noticed when we walked in here today, you could hear the birds chirping, you could hear the squirrels jumping from limb to limb, you open up the screen door to the lab, you can hear creaking all the way. It's a ghost town here in Fort Collins and in cities and towns around America. I mean, where do you like, when you see that, have you experienced anything like that in your life? Like, what do you think the impact is right now? I was on the phone yesterday to a university president, Southern California, because I was supposed to be there for the commencement and of course it's canceled, but he said he was driving up either I-5 or as they say in Southern California, the 405. And he said he was going 75 miles an hour at 8 o'clock in the morning, which you never do in Los Angeles, Orange County at that time. I think the closest that I could come to the feeling of boy things have changed would be the evening of 9-11. I was a mile north of the Pentagon at 9-30 or 9-40 in the morning when that plane hit the Pentagon after New York and after Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And the sound is that you hear sirens much of that morning. And by evening time there were candles on the porches, street after street, people had put candles out. And if you drove around, which I-which I had to do in the next day or two, hanging from every overpass, were flags and signs that said God bless America. There wasn't much traffic because they'd asked us to stay home because they didn't know if there would be another attack. But it had the same feeling, but it was just a moment in time. It was just a few days, really. And now we are multiple weeks into the spread of the coronavirus, the identification of it. But in my lifetime I would say that would be the moment that was closest to this. So with everything that's bad that has happened and we've seen over time and never ever seen it in their own lives, good prevails at some point. What are you seeing, like right now we're in the midst of this and everybody's freaked out. Anxious. Anxious. Some people are feeling just despair and some people are defiant too. I mean, everybody has different reactions to the situation, but the thing that's going around right now is, hey, we're going to get through this. For my experience, I think that's true. But from where you sit and from what you've seen over your years here on Earth, when do you think it starts to turn and then what good do you think is going to come out of this? You know, when a couple three things, I think one is it's very interesting to see what's happening generationally at this juncture. There is a young generation that's never seen anything like this, even a couple of generations. Never felt the pressure or the seriousness of these kinds of moments except for young men and women who have gone off to war in Iraq or Afghanistan or were involved in some calamity somewhere. But the thing I keep hearing is the young people are stepping up and saying, what can we do to help senior citizens, can we get them groceries, can we do that sort of thing? So that's a really positive kind of thing. The second thing is that when you have a catastrophe or a calamity of some kind, almost without exception, you will see people take a step back or two to say, what's the larger picture, depending on where people are theologically, they'll say, well, where is God in all this? How could he, some people say, how can he let this happen? Other people say, this is a judgment for whomever did what. But the truth is we are a fallen planet, we're a fallen people and these kinds of things, you see over and over again throughout history. And I think what I've appreciated is that you hear certain voices that are saying, let's take a larger look at where our focus needs to be. We need to do the things that are important to the moment, whether it's sheltering in place or quarantining or not traveling, those are the tactical matters. But strategically, where does my hope lie? And I just think that question, where does my hope lie is the key question. My friend Bob Goff, who's written some couple of terrific books and very popular, is iconic for an older, he's not as old as I am, but among younger folks, he's iconic. And when 9-11 happened, they didn't have a television at their house in San Diego because he didn't want talking heads, telling his kids what to think about stuff. And I think their children were 11, 9 and 7, and I'll make this story short if I can. And so they had a family meeting and said, so this terrible thing has happened in New York City and in Washington. And the whole world is involved. What can we do to help them as a family? What could we do? And one of them said, well, why don't we write the leaders of all the nations to see if they'd come over for dinner? And so he said, OK. And then one other, one of the other kids said, well, I'd like to video that. And if they can't come for dinner, maybe we could go to their house for dinner. And the older, the girl, I think, who was in a video class, said, I'd like to video this. And the middle one, I think, who was more pastoral said, and I want to ask the leaders, where do you place your hope? Long story short. They ended up downloading all of these addresses of Prime Ministers and so forth around. And they sent letters to all of them. They ended up going to see 26 of these folks around the world. And they would invite them in for dinner. They'd video it. I mean, it's this incredible thing. But I think the question the young boy asked is, where does your hope lie? Is it the heart of this? And I think maybe the best thing to be able to come out of this, and quite apart from the tragedy of deaths and all of that, which is something that we need to be very concerned for, I think that's where it lands for me. So like LeBron James, you know, it's been a tough year for like sports, and he was quoted as saying, this isn't verbatim, but he said, hey, 2020, let's just redo it or forget it. And I think that's a sentiment that a lot of people have, like right now. So one thing that I've seen is, you know, all last year, the past three years, like all the political stuff that's going on, like it's gone, it's so bitter. Right. And now the sudden, everybody has like a common enemy that they can all agree on, right? That Corona is the enemy, and all this energy now is going towards fighting this enemy. And I think it's kind of less than the talk on the political side. I see that as being like a pretty cool thing that's happening. But then it's almost like going back to like the 70s, like when I was growing up, like our kids, like we've been taking family walks. We've been playing Monopoly and other board games and less time on the phone, less screen time. And I've been talking to a bunch of colleagues, you know, around the States, and they're like, this has actually been really a really good reset moment for me in my career and how much time I'm sending with work. People are saying that about the market, the housing market, the financial. You look at the church. There's been huge changes that are happening within the church. When you look at all of these possible reset moments, where does that take you? Your point about playing Monopoly with your kids, we have three teenage grandchildren living at our house with their parents because they're building a house right now. And yesterday Ruth and I played a trivial pursuit with two of the kids. The problem is we have an old trivial pursuit game. So all of the questions, you've got about 70s and 80s and they have no clue. So we're giving extra clues. So today I think we're going to Domino's. But I think your phrase, a reset moment, is really insightful. At various times in our life, usually out of pain, whether it's physical illness or family loss or whatever, we reset, we rethink things. In this case, sort of the whole world is resetting. And I think that's a positive. I think to understand that God in His compassion, and that sounds crazy if you have people dying. But I mean in the larger sense of things, allows us chances to reset and to rethink who we are, why we're here, how we think about other people, how we think about circumstances. That's a huge thing. I think one of the most interesting things for me, I'm having to reset, how I think about social media, I'm okay with social media, I'm okay with texting all this kind of stuff. I talk to a lot of university students, so I better be okay with it. But I think it's got a huge downside for all the reasons that we've talked about and heard about. But the upside is, usually in times of tragedy and huge pain, one of the resolving factors, one of the healing factors is people can get together. All of a sudden, you have a tragedy where people can't get together. Social distance is an oxymoron, I mean social means we're doing that. Distance as we, you're out there. And so texting and face timing and skyping, all of a sudden technology comes into play, I think, in a much more positive way to allow us to do some things we might not otherwise have seen. I don't think it's as good as certainly getting together, but at least we're not bereft, at least we're not totally in the dark. And I see that as a very positive thing. I think how we, going forward, we won't be able to do certain things in the same way. And that's, I think, probably a good thing. Yeah, with the social media, like the screen time, like I've just noticed with my kids, like where it was more centered on them, now they're using it to communicate with their friends. Yeah. So that's been cool. I even did a little post on my little Instagram. I took a picture of a phone and an iPad and I said, weren't these doing a good enough job creating social distance between people? That's a good one. So that's a great one. So when I look at that, you're a history buff. Yes. What are some things from the past that you look at and you can compare them to what's going on now and what we can learn in like maybe some lessons that from maybe an event back, way back when that is applicable to today and what we're going through? I was at a birthday yesterday, I'm a St. Patrick's Day boy. I was born three months after Pearl Harbor in March of 1942. That was the month when the Batan Death March started. We were totally caught off guard or unprepared for what happened at Pearl Harbor back in the day. And as a nation under arms, we were totally under prepared, if you will. Because of World War I, we became pacifistic and I understand all that, at least I acknowledge that. And so, you know, we were the 19th largest army in the world and all that's right after Portugal and all of that. And we were fighting an enemy that we could see, but we didn't know how they would do what they were going to do. That's true in any war, but this was particularly true. And I think that point is, okay, maybe we weren't as prepared as we might have been, I don't know, for this, but number one, how quickly can we ramp up? Because within two years of that, and again, this is a metaphor, but within two years of my birth, if you will, we had three million men under arms, but within two years the US was out producing all of the allies, all of the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, by far, because we had the capacity and the will and all of that. So I think the metaphor for even when you're not prepared, how do you go about ramping up? I think that's one piece. I think the more significant piece for me might have been in the late 60s and the early 70s, like 68 tonight, spring of 70, during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, most historians would say was the most terrible year in US history, apart from war in the largest sense. Within two months, you had two leaders assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr., in April, Bobby Kennedy, in June, a sitting president challenged to buy his own party in Bobby Kennedy, stepped down, you had riots at the Democratic National Convention. All this stuff was going on. In 1970, you had the Kent State shootings, you had the SDS weatherman blowing up a chemistry building in University of Wisconsin. I lived in Urbana, Illinois, University of Illinois, and we had 5,000 National Guardsmen on campus with bayoneted rifles. They trapped 2,000 students in campus town when they were riding and they broke every window on campus. All of this stuff was going on, and we had a curfew. At eight o'clock, State Patrol would patrol the streets. We thought it was the end of the world, and the fear level was just doing this. I think the thing that speaks to me the most is, and Roosevelt said this the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the only thing we have to really fear is fear itself. I don't know if it's the only thing, but it's the big one. I don't know about where it's spreading, where the virus is spreading around the world and how fast, but if the fear virus spreads in the five and a half inches between my ears, we have nowhere to go. That's where, by speaking to God and speaking to each other, it damps that down. It resets us in terms of where does our ultimate hope lie, and I think we need to go there. I think we really need, you can't just say, well, don't be afraid. God did, like, 70 times in the Scriptures, but I'm not God, but I'm saying if he said it, then probably we need to listen up. Anyway, I think that's the big one for me, and it was most real to me when I was a 30-year-old or a 27-year-old with little kids in Urbana, Illinois, back during those years, the late 60s and early 70s. On that note, I've had people just ask me who, you know, they could be anywhere on the faith spectrum. And they're saying, some of them are saying, which you mentioned earlier, why would God allow this? Others are saying, God's orchestrating this to punish America and the world for its sins. Other people are saying, there's no God. You know, it says, you have all the different camps. When you look at it and, like, looking towards God, what do you say to those people who are, like, hey, I'm just going to point the finger at God and say, this is your fault or your punishing us. I mean, theologically, like, where do you land on all of those bigger, deeper questions? Do you have an easier question? I just need help. I think explaining this to people. I think my question is, well, why would you say that? Why would you say that God is punishing? I mean, does he have a reason? I mean, where are we going with that? I think I read something this morning that helps me with that concept and something to mediate whatever the feelings are from a friend of mine, Steve Moore, who's been, lives in Minneapolis or St. Paul, but he's worked in DC since 1977. And he's very insightful. He's a writer. And perhaps I could just read part of this as a response to your question. Because I think oftentimes we can't answer the imponderables, but I do need to say, well, even if I can't figure it out, I need to figure me out in relationship to God. If there is one, and I love what AWS or the preacher of the last century said, when he said whatever comes into your mind, when you think of God is the most important thing about you. And so I have to say, what does the God, if I believe there is one, what does that God look like? How have I seen him act? And for me, that's in the scriptures. How do I do that? And this is a fellow who went through it. This is a guy named Jeremiah who wrote a writing in the Old Testament called Lamentations. And Steve is reflecting on that. This is Lamentations 3. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion never fail. They are new every morning, great as your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. It's good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Steve more than goes on to reflect this way. I know this is true, and it better be. The world of sin has always been full of things to be downcast about. Poverty, war, rejection, alienation, as well as disease and death. On top of all that is the fear and anxiety they produce. Jeremiah, the author of this, lived in such times when Israel was falling apart and invaders lurked on their borders. So he just has these comments, one, be honest about how I'm feeling. This is a response to, okay, what's going on here? Bitterness and gall and being downcast are part of the human condition. Two, crazy as it seems, affirmed that there is such a thing as hope and tried to call it to mind and hold it. I have a choice about what I think about. Number three, think clearly and courageously about who God is. God is love and nothing that happens should be allowed to touch that truth. Number four, as a matter of fact, God makes the world work backwards. Entropy says everything from bodies to galaxies, we're down and fall apart. But my God has compassion that are new every morning. I love that part. As you get older, you want to know about what's new every morning, right? Great is your faithfulness, even though my planet and my body, my society and my science and my politics disappoint, God is eternally reliable. I should never be surprised by the failure of all the idols I should never have trusted in the first place. In a time like this, as Tim Keller writes, and Tim being Pastor Emeritus, I think Redeemer Presbyterian in New York, great writer, I need to take the resources of heart and mind that I've devoted to idols, which I see are failing and reinvest them in my relationship on obedience to God and wait quietly, not fearfully or anxious, but hopefully for the salvation of the Lord. I love what he says there, and I think that's sort of the big picture. Yeah, and like the thing that jumps out to me is a hope part because panic and hysteria, they're not sustainable. No, it's impossible to sustain that. But hope is sustainable. Yeah. And I think a lot of it comes from the outflow of our lives rather than what comes into our lives and I'll explain that way, you just said. So if you're looking at your life and all you're doing is inflow and everything is about you and it's like success, success happens to you, significance happens through you. And so I think if you're on that channel, on a significant channel, you can be spreading hope and you can become more significant by pushing out more hope to people. So on the success side, it's great, there's successful people, that's great stuff. But that's what's happening to you. I think it's more important especially during these times is what's happening through you. Are you spreading panic? Are you spreading hysteria? Are you keeping people in fear or are you bringing hope to them, hope and life? And I think that's where there's a huge difference between the two and I'm choosing to try to live on this side, on like be significant, give hope, convoy hope, we're trying to do the same thing. We're getting trucks ready to send them out to churches all throughout the nation to where they can start serving their community. You mentioned your friends at your church who are the young kids, the millennials are looking for ways to help the scene and the Gen Zs and whatever those genes are. Yeah. I guess in closing, what would be your inspirational end bringing this scene for landing? What would be the words of wisdom and your grand fatherly voice that would just really get people pumped up and go, hey, I can go to bed tonight and sleep and know that tomorrow is a new day and I'm looking forward to the new day. Well, I think you're not a grandpa but you had that voice right there, there we go. I think that some people will say, well, you guys who are just talking about hope, that's just unrealistic. And what I would say is that if there's a real God and the hope is real, that's the most real thing there is going because everything we see around us is going up and smoke at some point. It's that this body's going to fall off, the planet's going to go, we know that. We already heard it said by Steve Moore. I think the words of Paul in Philippians, the last chapter, capture it because he gives a plan for how to make sure you have hope. And this is his plan. This is a letter to a people in a town and the town is no longer there in Macedonia, Northern Greece. It's a town of Philippi. And this is what he says, rejoice in the Lord always, I'll say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. And I would take that in two ways, one, he's near, he's present, but his coming is near as well. Do not be anxious about anything, you know, insert whatever you want, don't be anxious about relationships, don't be anxious about coronavirus, don't be anxious. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, it goes beyond all logic, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He's sitting in prison, he's got guards right there, I'd say, you know, if you present your petitions to God, the peace of God which transcends all understanding, he's looking at guys with spirits and sort of will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, that universe in the five and a half inches between my ears, that's the big one. Thank you, Kirk, for being with me, thanks for doing this podcast. Hey, thanks so much, it's great to be in a talk. It's good to be together even when we're six feet apart. That's right. Social distancing, keep it up.