I heard the poem “Push Out,” below, at Café Cultura , a free open mic forum focused toward youth in Denver. It hit me deep in my soul.

This poem by Bobby LeFebre speaks about changes in the neighborhood I grew up in. The poem’s topic is gentrification—the process of new residents with money (the “gentry”) moving into an older neighborhood, often displacing longtime residents. To me, this is not about “urban renewal”; it is truly about “pushing out” the history, people, and roots of urban neighborhoods.

"... what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?" T.S. Eliot – Waste Land

Last week I received an email from a friend who was preparing to speak to students at a local college ministry. He was looking at the call of Moses in Exodus 3 and noticed something peculiar about Mount Horeb, the place where God arranged to meet Moses. He pointed out that Mount Horeb literally means “desolate wasteland.” He asked me what I thought of this, assuming that I had thought of this.

I noticed the oddly placed knife on the table. I gazed upon the swollen eyes of the weeping mother. I detected the frustrated stance of the angered father. I said to myself, “Damn. Not again.”

I found myself praying this poem of George MacDonald's after preaching on Sunday. Do any of you preachers/teachers feel the same thing?

O Lord, I have been
talking to the people;

Thought's wheels have
round me whirled a
fiery zone,

And the recoil of my
words' airy ripple

My heart unheedful
has puffed up and
blown.

Friends at Dry Bones, a ministry among homeless youth and young adults in Denver, sent me an email asking for donated cameras. Here's why:

"For years, we have longed to have our kids chronicle their lives providing insight to the everyday struggles and successes they live. Survival, boredom, love, and hate is all around them and often experienced in ways words alone cannot explain. But a photograph! Now that speaks to the heart."

We stand in awe of the ocean
The thunderstorm
The sunset
The mountains
But we pass by
A human being
Without notice
Even though
The person
Is God's most magnificent creation.
- St. Augustine

"If you could take a photograph of God's most glorious handiwork, what would you photograph?"

Dedicated to John Kappler

Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?”
A valid question, I think.
My name means “full of grace, mercy and prayer” -
or so my mother liked to say, and I welcomed the thought of it.
My mother raised me well, and in the faith and all.
I learned my commandments all by heart and rarely sinned against them.
At least, so I thought, until you came along.
“Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain.”
That was an easy one, but “Oh, my God! Oh my God!”
Oh my God, I did it again.
Every time you look at me, John, my skin begins to crawl under your creepy leer,
You come up so close with your warm breath and uncomfortable compliments.
I can’t help it.

Some background on Anna Herron’s poem, posted yesterday.

John Kappler was killed by Tacoma's most notorious slumlord on June 8, 2005. I remember well the day I found him dead. Many believe John died confronting the abuse of power. The story is complicated, however, by the fact that John was afflicted with many thorns. He was bi-polar, paranoid schizophrenic, and homeless, with obsessive-compulsive behavior. John was abandoned at birth, raised in an abusive household, orphaned and wronged by almost every authority figure in his life, including the one who killed him.

I have arrived in my new home as part of an InnerCHANGE team. It is located in the "Haight-Ashbury" district of San Francisco. This district is where the famous hippie movement occurred in the 60s and 70s, including the infamous “Summer of Love.” Now, it is home to a large portion of San Fran's homeless youth. As we walk the streets, bodies line the curbs and store fronts. The smell of garbage, beer, and often marijuana fill my nostrils. It is a normal occurrence to see people using drugs in plain sight with little or no concern for the passer by.

Even as I try to describe this to you, I think it does not do the sight justice.

The Denver Street School has become a meeting space for the students and me--both my current self and the child of my youth. Our most recent adventure is a graffiti project. Graffiti is an artistic medium closely connected to the street life. When I was asked to consider starting this project, I knew there were several ways this could be done. However, as I walked the halls of the school, heard the conversations in the air, and reminisced on my life on the streets, I knew there was only one way I wanted to proceed. That was the way of an “Identity Piece.”

Nobody could have prepared us for impassioned manner in which the art became an expression of life for kids living on the margins of our society.

Alexandru-Iosif Kaltenbacher
March 18, 2003 - October 18, 2007

A cold north wind swept down upon us. The skies looked like storm-tossed seas. We huddled together, shivering. Plastic flowers bedecked the gray headstones that surrounded us. Teenaged orphan boys shoveled damp soil into a rectangular hole dug in the ground. I startled at the sound of dirt clumps thumping on the small casket below.

Today, we buried Alex. He was four and one-half years old. Alex was born to a young Roma (Gypsy) mother who lives in poverty in a small village in northwestern Romania. This young mother knew she could not properly care for Alex. No social system or specialists were in place to help her severely handicapped son.

A few weeks ago Denver Public Schools released the draft of a new discipline policy centered on the principles of Restorative Justice. The oppressive human data behind this policy reform is over 12,000 mostly middle and high school students suspended every year. In addition, around 600 are expelled and another 600 sent to court in the city of Denver. I had the unique privilege of facilitating the sub-committee of community advocates, parents, school staff and administrators that put this together, dramatically re-visioning how discipline will be done in Denver’s public schools.

More important are the human faces behind this policy reform.

I can’t remember the exact moment
That I stopped eating fast food
But it was a few years after
I gave up on the drive thru Jesus

Home.
When was the last time
Kym walked home?
Someplace with four walls,
a roof and a real bed.
A place where
she wouldn't have to be cold and wet.
A place where
soft, warm blankets would caress her cheeks,
like the ones you and I feel every night.
Home.
Where she doesn't have to be afraid
of getting robbed, beat or raped.
Home.
Where the smell of fresh brewed coffee
invites you to your favorite chair,
and you thank God for a beautiful day.