I was in library this last week, accessing the privilege that few in our world have—a computer.
I scarcely spent three minutes when a Lady came in to sit by my side. My senses suddenly became super sensitive. I was overwhelmed by my emotions. Sitting beside me was the archetypal “bag lady.” Her earthly possessions were on a wheel of nylons between us. Her journeys and travails made it difficult to guess her age. What was left of her teeth was a vestige of what was.
My first sensation was the smell. Simply all consuming! Sweat and urine from many days past; droppings not fully wiped after visiting the park toilet? The fragrance was uniquely hers, unforgettable.
You spoke of your passion
All twisted tangled with flesh
Of glorious intimacies that haunt me
Vacancy cast forth
In a cold presence
Sitting there; blinking color reflecting
Refracting through the fragmented remorse
In a cab; some lustful act took place
Father of mine
Tell me where have you been
You know I just closed my eyes
My whole world disappeared
- Everclear
The greatest threat to our national security is not Al Qaeda. The greatest threat to our national security is fatherlessness.
Recently, I heard about a study that indicated that over 40% of children are growing up without a father in the home. As a youth mentor, I am aware that up to 75% of the kids we serve do not have a father active in their lives. Last week, I spoke to a young man and asked him what was one thing he was looking forward in his life. He replied, “That I would get to see my father who I got in touch with recently.” I asked him how long it had been since he had talked to his dad. “Three years.”
I don't know if this young man had contacted his dad, or vice versa. One thing is certain: at that moment I looked deep into that boy’s eyes and I could see that his life dream was hanging on the hope that he would get to see his daddy. It made me weep inside, and I am praying that his heart's desire will come to fruition.
James Alison describes Advent as “the cycle by which God breaks through the clutter of our lives to announce to us that the Presence is very near, erupting into our midst, hauling us out of our myths, our half-truths and the ways we have settled for what is religious rather than what is holy, alive and real.” This from an article a good friend dropped on my desk yesterday entitled “Living by the Word: Punctured,” from an Advent series Alison is writing for The Christian Century (11/13/07).
Alison goes on to suggest that becoming attentive to the presence of Christ begins with the assumption that such a process “is going to be difficult—that we are half asleep, our ears dulled and the voice of the One who loves us is too radiantly bright to be picked up on our defensive antennae.”
Last week, Geography of Grace editor Scott Dewey was overheard to say that posts here need not always aspire to be profound. That took the pressure off for me, because few things I have to say can match the profundity of Oluwasayo, the pathos of contributors like Sam or Mary, or the eloquence of poets like Tad. But I’ve got something on my mind, and Scott gave me permission to lob a “thought bomb” onto this blog. You should find a grain of salt before you continue reading.
What has been bothering me is a curious expression that I’m noticing used by Christian people around me, in churches and urban ministry circles in Denver. (I haven’t noticed it being used by people who aren’t Christians, and I wouldn’t recognize the phrase in Spanish or Swahili, so my rant must be restricted to my limited context.)
I live and teach at Joshua Station, a Christian community housed in a renovated motel that provides “transformational housing” for homeless families in Denver. In the process of tutoring and providing homework help for the kids here, I find I’m getting educated.
I've been struggling to relate to one of my neighbors, a second-grade boy. This is a bright, capable kid who usually finishes all his homework, all by himself, but still somehow needs a tutor sitting right next to him. He wants to be recognized for the things he's good at, but shuts down immediately when things get challenging. (Should I tell you how much I relate to this kid?!)
As the sun settles safely
Beyond the day
Leaving behind a gradually fading beauty
And warmth
For a more foreboding time
Called night
Questions wash upon the shore
Of the lake side
Does sin cause death?
Or does death cause sin?
Asks the seven geese
That arrive for the evening
On the banks of this place
Like the seven deadly sins
There question is rhetorical
But I’m undecided
Prior to coming out to Denver to begin seminary I was a case manager for mentally and physically disabled adults. During the two years invested in that job, I played many games of Jenga. I had one particular client who demanded we get at least one game in before talking about anything serious. He loved to play Jenga, but he was hopeless at the game. His hands were gnarled and extremely unsteady, and he might have removed two or three blocks before the entire tower would come crashing down time after time.
As I trudged through my seminary years and still now I often see folks who approach Jesus much like the game of Jenga. The goal for many is to position their blocks just right, neatly and squarely, so that their construction will stay standing. They may look with fear and resentment upon those who take risks in removing some of the key blocks from the foundation. Others thrive, and even pride themselves in taking the risks. They enthusiastically test the construction, removing as many blocks as possible to show others their tower will still remain upright.
“It is at particular times in particular places and in particular people that we meet God.”
Canon Mark Bonney
The Pacific Northwest of the United States is my home. I live in the “NONE ZONE.” According to the “Religion By Region Series” that looks at religion in eight different regions of the United States, we are called the None Zone because we are the least churched region of the country. When filling out the 2000 census most of us in the Northwest (a whopping 62%) checked, “NONE” with regards to our religious affiliation. Welcome to my home - the NONE ZONE!
First Coming: Dedicated to those Serving in Hard Places
God did not wait for the perfect time.
- Madeleine L’Engle
“Beyond human effort.”
Those words caught my eye in Jeremy Simon’s post weeks ago, and have haunted me ever since. “Going by sheer numbers, it sometimes feels that the task of helping kids and improving schools is beyond human effort.”
Jeremy was speaking of realities that exist even within a remarkably successful conflict mediation program. At face value, Jeremy’s statement gives rise to a hopeless nihilism within me. As I’ve reflected further within my own context, however, the very nature of its hopelessness invites a hope like no other.
O’Connor a Southern spinster,
because she was married
to her writing. I
might call her a battered
wife, because her words
never flinched from beating
the shit out of her or
anyone else. Flannery
felt most loved after
a good beating.
One of the valuable things about poetry is that it can introduce us to a new person or place, by giving us a snapshot into a new story to explore. Tom Llewellyn’s poem below, “I’d never call Flannery,” introduces Geography of Grace readers to someone who is a bit of a matron saint of ideas that guide the work of many contributors to this site.
Without going heavy on biography (you can feel free to do your own research), Flannery was a southern Catholic writer, primarily of short stories but also three novels, and many letters and essays. She died young at the age of 39 from lupus, which she suffered with for the majority of her life, and from which her father also died when she was the age of fifteen.
You’ve heard the statement: “I’m not opposed to immigration; I’m opposed to illegal immigration.”
That claim has never seemed honest to me, but I’ve struggled with explaining why. In the December 6, 2007 edition of Time Magazine, however, Michael Kinsley argues convincingly that the core issue here is opposition to immigration in general, not simply illegal immigration:
