The Paradox

There are many days that it seems I can not go on. I can not care for another person, meet another need, or welcome another visitor. The weight of giving yourself to others becomes too great and I want to give up. I want to crawl into my room and hide from the world, from the pain, from the call of Christ. However I am always surprised by the joy that wells up in me at these moments of disillusionment. There is a joy that I find nowhere else in this world than at my wits' end with a life among the poor. It may be the reminder that God is with me, or maybe the knowledge that I am exactly where Jesus has called me to but it is truly ineffable. It's like being caught by the safety net of purpose and meaning which really is the grace of God. Like the idea that too much of a good thing is bad; it seems like too much pain is really good. When you empty yourself for another you are filled. When you have mercy, mercy is yours. When you weep with another, your tears turn sweet. Tonight I was sharing these thoughts with a community member and was reminded of these words of Mother Teresa :

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

Here are a few other quotes to meditate on:

To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

- Galatians 6:9

"Give me health and a day...

...and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous."

-Emerson

Once each month, the whole lot of us spend a day together. Very often we spend the time doing some kind of work, a project for productive bonding. Slacker though I am, I've loved working with people towards a useful purpose we have chosen. Labor has a way of distilling our words and actions, so that most of the idle babble by which we hide ourselves is left behind. Our particular strengths and weaknesses are set in front of the whole, and there we are. A little more naked, perhaps than we like to be, and a degree more real. It's uncomfortable, and we usually have self-defending attitudes to dispose of before much can be accomplished with the task at hand or with the people by our side. We can grow by sharing work.

And we can grow by sharing fun and leisure. So this November, in lieu of ripping out walls or building fences, we crossed a bridge and headed for Fort de Soto to spend the day on the beach. Fueled by fast Caribbean food and driven by Gio and his vanly van, the nine of us spilled out onto the sand, some with books, one with a football (is this becoming a trend?), into an unflinching glory quietly spread out over land and water, between earth and sky. We had spent plenty of days tinkering away with our own attempts to create and to craft; now it was time to step into Dad's workshop and see how a pro does it, see the breadth of creative work that is our inheritance. I can't find any way of setting letters next to each other on paper or manipulating tongue and teeth and vocal chords to communicate what the sand says as it reshapes itself beneath and between us, or what the tide is teaching as it expands and recedes on the cusp of dry ground. Every clever word that comes to mind bows out of the conversation because of the molten waves of color pouring out of the horizon. It was good.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in-

Come from the mystic ocean,

Whose rim no foot has trod,-

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

Disease

We have nematodes. The root-bloating, root-twisting, and ultimately root-destroying kind. The explanation for the vegetable garden's lack of growth has been found. Why is it so hard for things to stay healthy? Recently I realized that my spiritual life had too become diseased. I had ceased to nourish it properly. Without constant prayer, without constant pouring into others, without constant purpose it's easy to fall into the disease of deception. The deception that our faith is meaningless. After only a few moments of selflessness, my faith felt restored. God, you are so good- and Oh, how we need you! Brothers, let us humble ourselves so that our faith may grow.

Pass the bread

"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you."

Happy Thanksgiving

The Evolution of Service

Jesus had fish and bread, we have open sourcing. There is a new wiki that's been created as a one-stop shop for the homeless community. Some of us from LakeHouse will be there on Friday to participate in the launch. In a world that pursues innovation for profit and status, this is very refreshing to see. We need more people engaging in new and innovative fields to expand the Kingdom and serve the poor.

Here's a fun discovery:

There is a community in St. Petersburg called the Bayboro House.

They invited underground peeps who weren't away with Intervarsity this weekend to have a barbecue at their house. This group of 17 men, women and children are part of the pacifist Church Communities International, formerly and variously known as the Bruderhof Communities, the Society of Brothers or the Hutterian Brethren. This network of small and not so small communities was founded by Eberhard Arnold in Germany in 1920. They have fled from Germany to England to Paraguay and to the US, following as closely as they know how to the early christian believers' practice of holding all things in common. No member keeps a personal bank account, and they all work together in various industries like cleaning services, carpentry and contracting, sign making and child care. Their lifestyle is simple, largely free of contemporary distractions of attention, devotion and resources. Yes, that means no TV. The brothers and sisters prefer to fill the void left by the entertainment industry with each other. It's austere to most of us, and it's been good to get a better perspective on how others try to live out their convictions.

It was really refreshing to spend time talking with some of the younger and older members. What the best of us in Tampa has for zeal, they have in ardent commitment. The guys explored together the common thread between our two peoples, which turned out to be football. There is a stand at the front edge of their property with a few books made free to any passerby, so I took one called Be Not Afraid: Overcoming the Fear of Death and sat on a firm mound of seaweed at the waters' edge to read while the rest tossed the pig skin around. Being antisocial is how I engage. By the time the sun tucked into its western bed, the goodbyes were tinged with gratitude for such open hospitality and a little bit of wonder about where our search for a just lifestyle will take each of us.

You Wanna Change the World...

...but you don't wanna change your ways.

From Claibornes comment about doing dishes to Durden's advice about ownership, we hear a common theme: idealism and dreaming vs. real life, habit, and craving for security. In community the battle is brought to the front lines of sharing, sacrificing, and learning to be patient. We come here to learn and we miss the lessons. We come for community and we cling to our independence. We dream of revolution and we dont take up our cross. Sometimes we don't even lay down our lives. We look outward and struggle inwardly. We cry for justice on the Earth while there are theives in the temple of our heart. Surrender is imperative, we say that we agree and we walk in disagreement.
Jesus, chase them out! help us to desire the means to the ends that we really desire. May your kingdom come and may we your people learn to let go and love.
God help us.

Halloween

Tonight the house on Lake Avenue was flush with light, full of new faces (some of them painted), feasting on the grill and pulsating with beats courtesy of John Langley*. We had a block party for Halloween and invited the neighbors to chill with us. Matt and Will took turns at grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. Yummm. Friends from the Robyn's Nest community joined us and their Drew was good enough to take these pictures, lest all memory of the evening fade in a sugar daze.

Gio,Drew + Alexander jammed and danced with the kids. Natalia dressed up like a hippie. Natalia being Natalia, it was not apparent that she was in costume. Jon did caricatures of anyone willing to be defaced by his pen. Doug + Dennis brought a cotton candy machine to make sure our sugar levels stayed high enough. Some people had awesome costumes like Robbie the caveman with his real actual dreads. Some came as just the studs we are. Everyone was welcome.



*John Langley is, in fact, the man. Just in case there was any question about that.