Imagine what it is like to be mute. To be silent every day, to never say a word. Sounds escape: grunts, moans, the occasional squeal of laughter. But no words.
I first met her in a Romanian orphanage. She was standing in a hallway corner, rocking. It was no gentle swaying movement; her whole body lurched back and forth, back and forth, her hands held awkwardly in front of her to keep balance. I didn’t know she was a girl then, because just like all the other kids, her hair was cut short to keep lice away. I walked towards her and she recoiled, retreating farther into the darkness of the gray walls. “Cum te cheama?” I asked her. What’s your name? She said nothing.
i love the night on haight street.
it seems to bring out truth.
the farce of joy through drugs.
the lack of love in last night's partner.
the real questions of, "what am I doing here?"
when night hits the homeless friends i find left on the street are either so drunk they can't move or are so depressed they don't care.
that is when i see people who are open and desperate no one is around to impress.
they are simply there and sometimes ready for Jesus.
Reflection From Starbucks On The Day That Ronnie Died
In the mirrored reflection
The glass that separates us
From the evil empire
Beans and dream,
Grown, bought, stole, consumed
From a caffeine induced haze
I see America
Jesus said when we do something unto the least of these, we've done it unto him. I wonder, when the least of these does something for us, is Jesus giving us a gift? Often I come expecting to give, and God asks me to be ready to receive.
A couple Saturdays ago, my teammate Luke and I were walking through Golden Gate Park. As usual, we asked God to enable us to connect with people and communicate his love. We came upon a big group of street kids sitting on the hill in the sun, warming off the chill from the previous night.
As Luke talked with some guys, I sat down next to a 19-year-old girl our whole team has been getting to know. She sat on her skateboard, resourcefully patching holes in her pants with scraps of fabric and dental floss for thread. We chatted as she sewed.
The heat rises from the streets of Delhi, stirring the woman’s sari. She is crying, distraught, her hands pressed against the glass of our car window. She holds something up for me to see; it looks like a hospital bill. Her hand slams desperately, again and again, making smudges on the glass. I look away, telling myself there is nothing I can do. The traffic light turns green, and the sound of dozens of motorcycles revving their engines drowns out the woman’s cries. We leave her behind in a cloud of exhaust. But she follows me, out of the alleys filled with animal refuse, past the garbage heaps and ragged children. She follows me beneath the bright fluorescent lights of the airport, across the dark ocean, and into another country far away.
The graffiti projects talked about in my last post with the students at the Street School are complete. Words cannot do justice to the energy, artistic quality, and captivating poetry the students utilized to create their “Identity Pieces.” As a first time-teacher of this art medium in such an emotionally charged environment, I was extremely pleased at the level of engagement by all. No, I was impressed beyond imagination.
The art teacher said to me, “It is so difficult to get our students to really give their hearts to anything, given all the pain in their lives. They have so many distractions. For the first time a long while I heard the kids say, “We get to take these projects home with us, right? Gladly I responded to them, “Of course.”
After our graffiti “identity projects” (post 1 and post 2) were finished, students at the Denver Street School took time to reflect about the creative process. We explored questions such as “What did you think about the medium? How did it feel to create your own poem? What was it about the poem or this project that made it a genuine reflection of your identity? What was did it feel like to be vulnerable? How was this freeing to you? How did it feel to write openly about pain?”
Morning percolates
With an easy hum and gurgle
Cascades of water
Bubble and billow
Down through the roasted dust
Of many years
Drip by drip
I’m saturated with your ancestors
And by the sweat from your brow
Outside the Camp: The Way of Pilgrimage in Hard Places
“God is at home. We are in the far country.”
Meister Eckhart
“Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make people holy by his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.”
Hebrews 13:12-13
Today I have been reading about pilgrimages. (One helpful overview is here.) The word pilgrim, I learned, originally comes from the Latin per (through) + ager (field, country, land). A pilgrim passes through the land. In the Vulgate Bible, it was used to translate the Hebrew Testament word for sojourner and the Greek Testament word for resident alien—both central identities for the people of God.
“Much of the future of the inner city will depend upon the women and men of the community who have the vision, spiritual depth, street smarts, and skills to midwife new ways of being church, of pastoring amidst suffering, and of generating alternative neighborhood visions and narratives.”
- Mark Gornik, To Live in Peace
At the Issachar Community, we agree. The future of the city will depend on leaders who understand their communities, and bring themselves wholly into to the development, service, and work needed to be done in their neighborhoods. This is why at Issachar we strive to create a space for young urban leaders to reflect on faith, action, and imagination.
“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.” Isaiah 45:3
A very dear friend shared this passage with me this morning. He did so as an encouragement for me as I continue to wrestle with God’s presence/absence in the midst of pain and suffering in the work we do among the broken. More so, he gave it to me as I deal with my own brokenness in the process. With stories of families deciding to give up on healing, youth deciding to reject love, and young women becoming pregnant by strangers, the words treasures of darkness in this passage is perplexing to me.
Today we are on the brink of spending Thanksgiving at a time when our own family acknowledges the way our blood families have abandoned us. I lament with the countless others we serve who are travelling this same journey and ask, “Where are our riches stored in secret places?”
I confess to posting this video from Bangkok, Thailand mainly because it gave me a good laugh—an admiring laugh at that. I don’t know the original source, but it was forwarded to me by my friend Matt Harrison, who works on FasTracks, Denver’s mass transit expansion.
A buzzword in Denver now is “transit oriented development” or TOD, where new high density “live-work-play” neighborhoods are sprouting up around commuter light rail stations. Bangkok obviously is way out ahead of us in that regard.
No matter where you go, the debate continues. What do we do about immigration reform? There are an estimated ten to twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States and rising. People of faith in the North American church find themselves on varying ends of this political hurricane. Depending on perspectives, people pray for God to respond in different ways.
Although the immigration issue encompasses more than immigrants from Mexico, it is this population I mainly see in the spotlight. Among other things, I’ve noticed this debate conveyed as a threat to the American way of life, specifically with regard to language and culture. There are countless political terms one could toss around, such as human rights, economics, welfare, and national security. I could join in, and try to sound like a very well informed expert on the matter. I am no expert, and this is no call to action.
Instead, for this very personal post, I simply want to share with you a letter written by my ten year-old daughter Angel about her family.
You don’t believe in Starbucks
Boarders or Wal-Mart
On any of the convenient coffers
Of American capitalism
I wonder
Is it a fair trade?
Your Jamba Juice
Good Will clothes
Your conscience eased
Because you bought your Ralph Lauren
Twice used
But is her pain, the injustice
Now twice removed
Because you bought it for two dollars?
