One of the strange and uncomfortable aspects of being a pastor with cancer is the reversal of roles. Congregations look to their ministers to be strong, to be there for them in all circumstances, to present the sort of reliable public image pastoral-care professors describe as a “non-anxious presence.” Yet, when we fall sick, our human frailty is suddenly out there, for all to see.That’s not a bad thing. I’d be the last one to pretend to any sort of invincibility. Some congregants may be eager to put their preachers on a pedestal, but that’s certainly not where we belong.
Most ministers have had the experience of hearing the parents of some young child confide, with a sheepish grin, that their son or daughter actually thinks we’re God (or, at least, Jesus). Parents shouldn’t be dumbfounded when their children come up with such an idea. After all, they teach their kids the church is God’s house, don’t they? When they bring them there, what do the children see? They see a person standing up front, lifted high, set apart from the rest of the people. This person is wearing strange garments and speaks with a booming voice (assisted by a microphone, though the kids don’t know that). Deeper than that, many children are highly intuitive. They pick up on the psychological dynamic, in their family system, known as “projection.” Knowing that their parents revere God, they transfer – or project – that authority onto us, the people who have the most prominent role in church.
It’s not only young children who do this. Some adult church members, consciously or unconsciously, strive mightily to do the same to their ministers. Sometimes, in a limited way, this can be in service to the Gospel – as people use us as a sort of transitional stepping-stone on the way to God, the only true object of devotion. At other times, it can verge on the pathological. A few people place such unreasonable expectations on their ministers, that when those hopes are inevitably dashed, they either lash out against us or depart for another church (where, as often as not, they begin the projection-and-disappointment cycle all over again).Cancer has exposed my own feet of clay, for all to see. It’s a fascinating phrase, “feet of clay.” It comes from a little-known biblical reference, Daniel 2:31-40, in which the prophet interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. It’s a dream about a monumental royal statue, coated in precious metals and iron, but with feet of clay. A great stone strikes the feet of clay, which causes the statue itself to collapse. Daniel, of course, interprets this vision as a bad omen for the future of the Babylonian king’s dynasty.
When we say a person has “feet of clay,” we mean he or she is only human. Clay, according to the Genesis creation story, is the material out of which God fashioned the first humans. African-American poet James Weldon Johnson envisions that scene in these powerful words from his poem, The Creation:“Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul...”
We are clay: all of us, ministers and laypeople alike. But we also have within us the breath of the Spirit. It’s but one more lesson cancer teaches.
...One of the patients, Fantan Dere, is a young girl unsure of her age. She tells nurse Bethlehem Tesfaye that she may be 10, but the nurse thinks it's more likely Fantan is 12. 
Sidney Sheldon, who enjoyed very successful careers in cinema, theatre, and later television before turning to fiction and becoming a spectacularly popular novelist, has died in Los Angeles following complications from pneumonia. He was 89.
Libya's President Muammar al-Gaddafi is escorted by his (female) bodyguards after the morning session of the African Union Summit of Heads of States in the United Nations office in Addis Ababa January 30, 2007. REUTERS/Andrew Heavens 
Jan. 26, 2007 — With her good looks, the 28-year-old Ethiopian knockout is one of the fashion world's "it" girls and the first black woman chosen as the face of Estee Lauder. 
The following article takes a critical look at the synopsis of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s “
Since she was 6 years old, Maselech Mercho has hiked up into the lush Entoto hills near Addis Ababa to gather wood, illegally, from the protected eucalyptus forests. She has no tools but her hands, so she pulls the branches she can reach, and carries out some 65 pounds of firewood on her back.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 01/25 - African leaders will make a solid commitment to holding the first-ever World Cup on the continent in 2010 in South Africa when they convene here 29 January for their annual summit, a top African Union (AU) official said here Wednesday.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger has met top Somali Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is being held by Kenyan intelligence in Nairobi, a U.S. embassy official said on Wednesday.
The U.S. official, who confirmed the meeting which a source had told Reuters about earlier, spoke on condition of anonymity and declined to give any details. Ahmed, one of the most visible faces of the defeated Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) during its six-month rule of most of southern Somalia, surrendered at the Kenya-Somalia border.
Ryszard Kapuscinski, a globe-trotting journalist from Poland whose writing, often tinged with magical realism, brought him critical acclaim and a wide international readership, died yesterday in Warsaw. He was 74.
Ethiopian Police beat and killed activist Tesfaye Tadesse, age 25, after dragging him out of his friends home. Tesfaye's autopsy revealed that he had lost three of his front teeth and one eye due to severe beating. This is believed to be the sixth politically motivated killing in Addis Ababa, by govt. Police in the past week.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A top leader of Somalia's ousted Islamic movement seen by the U.S. as a potential key to preventing a widespread insurgency there surrendered to authorities and is under protection in Nairobi, officials said Monday.
