Before we eat dinner in the Winter Emergency Shelter, it is our custom to form a circle and say grace. Relying on the Lord to bring us together, we always ask for a volunteer, and this always contributes to the warmness in our welcome of one another.
On this night we were gathered in a circle and the invitation was extended – an eleven-year-old girl in the shelter with her family offered to pray. She spoke loudly and vibrantly, not in church-words but in the most sincere conversational language, “Thanks God that we have a place to sleep and that we have some food to eat, and for the nice people here, and that’s about all I can think of to say... I’ll say good-bye for now, but I’ll be talking to you later before I go to sleep.”
It was the tone, the sincerity, the plain honesty of a young girl who conversed with God as if it were the very hand she held next to her. We probably had a half a dozen denominations represented in the room at that time, and some strong theological differences as well, but as we looked up from the prayer there were few dry eyes. This child had literally taken us by the hand into heaven to a place where God is. In that moment we shared a common understanding that we were being loved. It felt good. But more than anything, it made us experience one another in the vulnerability what it is to be human, and if only for a brief moment, to understand our unity not through common opinion, but through the fragile and tender nature that we share together, so powerful in its claim upon our hearts and so infinite in its possibilities to turn our world upside down.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
One love
Last night we spent several hours trying to help two young teenage girls who are homeless with their family. The chaos, fear, and deep hurt of homelessness have finally become too much for them. The family is getting all kinds of counseling, but the constant dialogue and reminders of their devastating situation only seemed to increase the tension. Last night their anxiety reached a peak and they couldn’t calm down.
They were crying for the protection of their father – if their father only knew what kind of situation they were in, he would stand up for them and take care of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s their father’s irresponsibility, drug use, and angry violence that put the family in their present need. He actually lives nearby, but takes no interest in his kids. Paradoxically, it is the church volunteers who are providing the shelter, their counselors, and even their mother who are the enemy – the ones from who they are trying so desperately to escape. A little love, real help, sometimes gives permission for all the repressed emotion to break loose, and I suppose it’s true that when we begin to feel safe, we may hurt the ones closest to us.
I knew I couldn’t relate to them as a minister, sensing deep down that approach would only make matters worse. I had to relate to them as another person, a human being, beyond the barriers of generation and life experience that separate us, to somehow connect with them in an expression of real relationship and genuine caring. Approaching them at this level, in simple friendship, calling them by name and listening to them - we could feel the Spirit moving and working among us.
As we talked, I found myself genuinely moved and identifying from my own childhood with their pain and fear. The reality was that it brought tears to all our eyes. I could identify profoundly with their feeling of abandonment.
Once again, as many times as I have neglected this lesson, I am reminded that the heart of our religion is love. Our deepest desire, really the only one that matters, is that we know that we are loved – deeply, securely, unconditionally, and profoundly. Just as important, to know that our love matters to other people, and that our power to express love is accepted, welcomed, and creates happiness and hope.
Once again I’m reminded how equal we are, young and old, homeless and housed, whatever the differences that separate us as persons in this world, and that it is such a rare experience to grasp the depth of that reality. None of us can ever truly realize it in this life how greatly we are loved, and how beautiful and life-changing that ineffable love can be. If we have that knowledge, we have the fullness of our religion and of life itself. Without that knowledge, there is really nothing that matters at all. No doctrine, philosophy, discipline, or professional service will substitute.
Maybe I’m being too simplistic. The emotions of last night are still strongly with me. Nevertheless, it’s how I feel – today, just as through the rest of my life.
They were crying for the protection of their father – if their father only knew what kind of situation they were in, he would stand up for them and take care of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s their father’s irresponsibility, drug use, and angry violence that put the family in their present need. He actually lives nearby, but takes no interest in his kids. Paradoxically, it is the church volunteers who are providing the shelter, their counselors, and even their mother who are the enemy – the ones from who they are trying so desperately to escape. A little love, real help, sometimes gives permission for all the repressed emotion to break loose, and I suppose it’s true that when we begin to feel safe, we may hurt the ones closest to us.
I knew I couldn’t relate to them as a minister, sensing deep down that approach would only make matters worse. I had to relate to them as another person, a human being, beyond the barriers of generation and life experience that separate us, to somehow connect with them in an expression of real relationship and genuine caring. Approaching them at this level, in simple friendship, calling them by name and listening to them - we could feel the Spirit moving and working among us.
As we talked, I found myself genuinely moved and identifying from my own childhood with their pain and fear. The reality was that it brought tears to all our eyes. I could identify profoundly with their feeling of abandonment.
Once again, as many times as I have neglected this lesson, I am reminded that the heart of our religion is love. Our deepest desire, really the only one that matters, is that we know that we are loved – deeply, securely, unconditionally, and profoundly. Just as important, to know that our love matters to other people, and that our power to express love is accepted, welcomed, and creates happiness and hope.
Once again I’m reminded how equal we are, young and old, homeless and housed, whatever the differences that separate us as persons in this world, and that it is such a rare experience to grasp the depth of that reality. None of us can ever truly realize it in this life how greatly we are loved, and how beautiful and life-changing that ineffable love can be. If we have that knowledge, we have the fullness of our religion and of life itself. Without that knowledge, there is really nothing that matters at all. No doctrine, philosophy, discipline, or professional service will substitute.
Maybe I’m being too simplistic. The emotions of last night are still strongly with me. Nevertheless, it’s how I feel – today, just as through the rest of my life.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Mission as Jesus saw it
For so dearly has God loved the world, that it has become our parish....
Yesterday I attended the first meeting of a “collaborative” of community leaders and citizens to look at the growing homelessness crisis here and brainstorm broad community solutions. I wish I could say that it was spirit of compassion that brought the group together but it was a response to the growing outcry of the churches, partnering with persons experiencing homelessness, that action be taken. Volunteers from churches number in the hundreds, and the building of community and mission inspires a thirst for community justice and social change. The artificial divide between “gospel” and “social action” breaks down rapidly and a larger discussion is encouraged – what to do when our neighbors are in trouble and the community is hurting?
One of the best results of mission activity is the elimination of the us-them world view. Doing mission brings fresh understanding to the Gospels which are full of stories of Jesus breaking custom, crossing barriers, ignoring prejudice and stereotype, and bridging the great gap of social and religious divide. How powerful are the Gospel stories of Samaritans, strangers, gentiles and other religions, Romans, homeless and other desperately poor, tax collectors, prostitutes, moral outcasts, all brought together in the presence of Jesus... often under withering criticism... all accepted for who they are and raised to new heights of their humanity by being loved unconditionally.. We are so used to hearing the story, have so romanticized the revolutionary message and not given our best energy to making Jesus the center of mission ... we can so easily miss the power of this radical (back to our roots) world-changing ministry of simple neighborhood, a parish in which all are welcome. The church has yet to plummet the full depth of what Jesus is teaching us.
Remarkably at the end of our “collaborative” meeting, clearly secular, was the request by church participants that we close with a prayer. It was not the formal kind of invocation or benediction, but a spontaneous response to a request at which everyone stood and we could feel the common desire to move to something higher. I know the struggle is ongoing and such a spirit of collaboration and unity can evaporate pretty fast – real change intends to come slowly in increments over time – but it is still a dazzling thing to witness the power of the Gospel shared in the community through the committed lives of persons of faith and faith communities. Powerful stuff when unleashed! Most memoralbe, when the chief of police was leaving he turned to me to comment, “I’m very glad for this meeting. Most people think law enforcement is the answer to the homeless problem, and I don’t know how to convince them that this isn’t true. A gathering like this is what we really need...” Maybe the secret is getting out: Jesus lives!
Yesterday I attended the first meeting of a “collaborative” of community leaders and citizens to look at the growing homelessness crisis here and brainstorm broad community solutions. I wish I could say that it was spirit of compassion that brought the group together but it was a response to the growing outcry of the churches, partnering with persons experiencing homelessness, that action be taken. Volunteers from churches number in the hundreds, and the building of community and mission inspires a thirst for community justice and social change. The artificial divide between “gospel” and “social action” breaks down rapidly and a larger discussion is encouraged – what to do when our neighbors are in trouble and the community is hurting?
One of the best results of mission activity is the elimination of the us-them world view. Doing mission brings fresh understanding to the Gospels which are full of stories of Jesus breaking custom, crossing barriers, ignoring prejudice and stereotype, and bridging the great gap of social and religious divide. How powerful are the Gospel stories of Samaritans, strangers, gentiles and other religions, Romans, homeless and other desperately poor, tax collectors, prostitutes, moral outcasts, all brought together in the presence of Jesus... often under withering criticism... all accepted for who they are and raised to new heights of their humanity by being loved unconditionally.. We are so used to hearing the story, have so romanticized the revolutionary message and not given our best energy to making Jesus the center of mission ... we can so easily miss the power of this radical (back to our roots) world-changing ministry of simple neighborhood, a parish in which all are welcome. The church has yet to plummet the full depth of what Jesus is teaching us.
Remarkably at the end of our “collaborative” meeting, clearly secular, was the request by church participants that we close with a prayer. It was not the formal kind of invocation or benediction, but a spontaneous response to a request at which everyone stood and we could feel the common desire to move to something higher. I know the struggle is ongoing and such a spirit of collaboration and unity can evaporate pretty fast – real change intends to come slowly in increments over time – but it is still a dazzling thing to witness the power of the Gospel shared in the community through the committed lives of persons of faith and faith communities. Powerful stuff when unleashed! Most memoralbe, when the chief of police was leaving he turned to me to comment, “I’m very glad for this meeting. Most people think law enforcement is the answer to the homeless problem, and I don’t know how to convince them that this isn’t true. A gathering like this is what we really need...” Maybe the secret is getting out: Jesus lives!
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