Lake House

'What the hell are all these people doing in the same room with each other?

2012-03-15T15:54:00.001-04:00

"So an old black man, an old white man, and an old Jewish man are sitting around talking..." Sounds like the beginning of a really great joke but it actually was the beginning of a really great house church meeting last night. I could also have started by saying "So an asian girl, a black girl and a white girl were..." or even "So a high school student, a college student and teacher were..." or "So two Puerto Ricans and a Colombian are looking for Jesus..." You get the picture and it is the picture of the Kingdom of God.

Revelation 7:9

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count,

from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb."

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'...and what exactly is success?

2012-03-12T17:36:00.001-04:00

It's been about two years now since we first met Steve. He had been chronically homeless for years and had moved from city to city in search of assistance. Many might have been critical of his situation because he had not made anything out of all the resources he had access to along the way. Steve was critical of how few and short-sighted many of those resources had been. A combination of limited resources and some personal issues like poor organization and depression had Steve in a situation where there just never seemed like a way out. In his exhaustion, he would make halfhearted attempts at recovery by utilizing resources that were available to him. It is not hard to see how someone in Steve's shoes might lose hope and grow critical of the very people that were trying to serve him and others in his situation. One thing Steve knew well was how ministries and social services function. He was very critical of hand-outs that only help you survive, programs that are nearly impossible to qualify for, people that 'clock in and out of being Christian', and many other things that he had encountered along the way. I will say that, while Steve has a keen eye for problems, he also spoke out of his own frustration and hopelessness at times. After walking alongside Steve for a few years now people in our community have been friends as well as targets of his accusations. In all honesty, many of his criticisms would hit home and more than once God used Steve as a prophet in our midst. Steve also said hurtful things at times that didn't seem fair and we did our best to remember where these thing were coming from in him. Over the last few years we have wrestled with, laughed with, prayed with, and lived with Steve. He is a good friend of our community and a man that we have learned a lot from. He is a brother of ours and here is a bit of his story since coming to Tampa.
Read more »

Make Kony Famous!

2012-03-06T16:43:00.002-05:00

We will be participating in this campaign in a big way. Stay tuned or let us know that you want to be involved. Tampa is gonna have a lot of potential for international attention this year and it just seems righteous for us to deflect that attention to the cries of the poor in Africa.

Tuning Our Lives to the Love of God

2012-02-29T15:05:00.004-05:00

I had the opportunity to sit down for lunch with a missionary from Africa today. This man moved into the Zambian bush with his wife where they lived among a tribe in an area with no water or electricity. The area had many orphans who could not be supported by their extended families, so this couple began an orphanage and a small school, which they built. They now have 17 children living with them, plus 2 of their own that they have had since living there. They are also providing the necessary supports for the extended families of another 130 orphans. In these cases, the extended family members have mostly been able to feed and shelter the children since losing their parents. Also, this missionary couple has began employing the community widows to help in the orphanage and school. As he told me his story I just kept thinking of James saying faith that is real it the faith that takes care of the widows and orphans.

An Ironic Dialogue between Generosity & Simplicity

2012-02-23T00:29:00.002-05:00

The picture above is of duck tape shoes made by one of our Lake House church girls. She has been embracing the idea of simplicity in creative ways and I gotta say I really loved her idea. At our meeting tonight on of the guys that lives in a nearby boarding house was sitting next to her. I noticed him staring at her feet throughout the evening. When the meeting ended he went over and asked her if she was in need of shoes. This man who has very little felt bad for this girl who he felt pity for because of her shoes. He asked her about five times throughout the evening if she wanted him to help buy her some shoes. She has a place to live, works, goes to school, has a car and in comparison with him is quite well off.
I am proud of both of them. I am proud of her for breaking herself out of compulsive buying so that she may do more meaningful things with the resources that God has given her. I am proud of him for being so generous with the very little that he has. The Kingdom of God is a funny place.

Conscious Party Performance by Sekajipo & The Jungle

2012-02-07T14:25:00.000-05:00

http://www.sekajipoandthejungle.com/

An Enchanted Weekend with Sekajipo & The Jungle

2012-02-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

This weekend was rich. It began Friday night as almost all of our community went rock climbing with some friends. We just played and laughed and destroyed our bodies. Then Saturday we hosted an incredible Conscious Party with Sekajipo & The Jungle. It was also a blast to have him staying at the house all weekend with us. We really miss him so much!
Then Sunday morning I spoke at Underground's Crucible. I spoke on Mark 5:1-20 and the audio recording is below. Then on Sunday afternoon we had a few couch surfers come over to stay for a few days. Their names are Taylor and Steve and they are riding their bikes across the USA raising money for KIDS. Here is a link to their blog called Trailing The Sun. Sunday we had Sekajipo, Taylor, Steve and another Steve staying at the house. We were supposed to also have our friend Russ spending the night but after showing up and seeing how many people were over he decided to seek shelter elsewhere. We understand but we were also bummed that he didn't stay. It is such a joy to have a house full of people to love on.

Tampa Epoch Kickstarter Campaign

2012-01-30T00:29:00.001-05:00

Our Community has been proud of the work being done by Bill Sharpe and the rest of the folks with the South Tampa News. The Tampa Epoch has been providing many in our community that have lost the right to make their needs known an opportunity to sell street papers. The paper is a high quality publication, a great resource in our city and also a huge chance for our neighbors in need to make ends meet. They started a Kickstarter campaign to help with the start up costs associated with this paper and we have decided to give and make the need know to you. Please consider visiting Kickstarter and pledging to support the paper and their vendors.

The Serenity Prayer

2012-01-24T19:22:00.002-05:00

God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

Jon sharing with TEDx Tampa Bay

2012-01-23T11:46:00.003-05:00

Here is a link to the Q&A that followed the talk. (you will need to turn your speakers up)

The Tampa Epoch

2012-01-15T15:54:00.005-05:00

After the ban on panhandling I was determined to make a homeless newspaper for the poor to sell in this city. See the city council had decided to make an exemption from this 'saftey legislation' for newspaper sales. I couldn't seem to figure out how selling newspapers made you safer than selling flowers, water, or just asking for help. Well that's why these decisions are left to the professionals downtown. I talked to many people and found lots of writers and even a printer that would help as long as I made it with a legit masthead. I had never even heard that term before. So I called a big street paper in Tennessee to ask some questions and they informed me that Bill Sharpe, who already prints papers is hard at work in Tampa and almost ready to print. I had them get me in touch with Bill and he introduced me to his paper that he was calling the Epoch. What a load off!!! Plus my paper WAS gonna suck. The Epoch is a great paper that highlights people that live on the streets stories, services and ministries in town stories and a lot more. They printed the first edition in December and from what I here they are doing pretty well with it. It has empowered many people to stay on the corners and make that money that they so desperately need. Kimberly from our home church wrote a wonderful article on our house and community in the January edition. Be sure to buy one and check it out. Even after you buy one remember that this isn't just about the paper, the men and women selling these papers may as well have signs that read 'hungry' or 'homeless'. Give generously.

Sekajipo Genes & The Jungle

2012-01-12T11:14:00.004-05:00

Is officially performing at the February Conscious Party!!!

Here is a preview:

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Conscious Party 2012

2011-12-29T16:20:00.001-05:00

Its a new year and I want to ask you all to help make this the best year that the Conscious Party has seen. The First Party of the year is next Saturday January 7th. Here are some ways you can plan to help:

Put it on your calendar and plan on coming
Start spreading the word (among both artists and the homeless)
Let us know if you can bring food (dinner or desert?)
Let us know if I can count you in for rides or set-up at 7:30 or clean up at the end of the night.
Start working on a poem or song to share. We want to encourage creativity and original pieces.
Pray that God would breathe life into our effort and that Jesus would be honored by the Party itself.
Use facebook, google+, twitter, and word of mouth to just help create a buzz for the coming months party.
Use this as a chance to invite and hang with your homeless friends. (if you don't have homeless friends, make one. Let me know if you need help)
DOES ANYBODY HAVE A VIDEO CAMERA AND/OR WANT TO HELP RECORD DURING THE NIGHT?

I am so grateful for all the ways that I have seen God's beauty through this party and look forward to gettin' conscious together!

Please click here and let us know how you can help

2011- Year End Review

2011-12-27T11:02:00.002-05:00

In many ways this has been a year of trials and obstacles. Natalia & I had to move out of the house for a season, Matt spent over half of the year out of town (and country), and with the smallest team we have had in years the guys took on the most ambitious ventures in hospitality that I can remember. 2011 started with a bullet lodged in one of our vehicles. Then within the first two weeks of the year we all had gotten ill from some communal plague, we had three intruders into our back yard, a stolen vehicle, and we got the place ready for the first Lake House wedding for a couple from our home church. And so the year went. We struggled as a community with convictions that lead us to turn off the heat and air conditioning as a way of breaking our addictions to comfort, consume less, and striving for a just lifestyle. As we sweat throughout the year we also faced many personal struggles and convictions that were faced as a family.
This year I had more opportunities to speak out than I ever had before as I pleaded with our city council not to legislate against our poor, challenged a local middle class church that meets in our neighborhood to love our neighbors, and had more speaking engagements than I was aware I could handle. I also had the opportunity to develop and teach an 8 week course on an ecological theology of liberation with the underground institute under the name Jesus & Urban Gardening. This material really came to me like a gift from God as Erica and I spent 30 days in April eating nothing but food that was sourced from within 100 miles of the Lake House.
Robby really kicked things into gear over the summer and busted out project after project which resulted in a cooler, cleaner house that once again had hot water that is warmed by Brother Sun.
Drew & Phillip both married and moved out and we had a beautiful columbian named Hugo & a Mad Genius named Cliff join our ranks. (Clayton just moved in at the end of the year as well)
We removed the dryer and learned to cook outside, we had many guests and we hosted some really great parties. We have struggled this year with communal disciplines and we are growing increasingly aware of our desperate need for the Spirit of God.
2011 was rough on us all but I am grateful to Jesus for the way he has walked with us and faithfully taught us along the way. When I look at our community today and think back to where we were 12 months ago I know this has formed a depth and unity between us like the effect great battles have on the men who return from them.
We anticipated a growth in community this year as it began. We spoke of other house and additions of people and projects. The anticipation of growth was correct but we were mistaken on what that would look like. Numerically we look very similar to what we did a year ago, as far as projects go we have actually atrophied (or streamlined for the optimists) but I know that growth has taken place in each of us as individuals and as a community as well. We have weathered storms and grown roots. May these roots draw deeply on the Grace and presence of God and may 2012 bear the fruit.

Lake House TED talk next Monday night

2011-12-05T10:47:00.003-05:00

Lake House: Solar Initiative

2011-11-30T21:09:00.004-05:00

I just finished writing a report for my solar energy class. For the report I had to determine the energy usage of our house and design a photovoltaic system to supply its needs. I was able to design a system to supply all of the needs of the back house. Here is a short video from the report showing what they system will look like. I am excited to say that we are going to go ahead and start building it. But for right now we just need to figure out how the heck to fund it. The total cost will be around 2 thousand dollars. If you have any ideas or suggestions please contact us.

Thanksgiving Tents

2011-11-28T13:10:00.001-05:00

We had a wonderful thanksgiving! We always have a dinner at the house for our friends from the neighborhood that might not otherwise have a family to spend it with. Historically we have dinner but most people show up full since there are so many places to get food on Thanksgiving. This year we had about 35 people at our place for dinner and the majority of them had not eaten anything. It was awesome and everybody ate their fill and pretty much polished everything off. Many of those who left our house that night had no home and were headed back out to their spots on the streets. They would sleep outside, try to stay warm, safe, and avoid the police who are constantly running them off. Like Jesus they have nowhere to lay their heads. Being that it was thanksgiving and I knew that a ton of people in our city were headed out to sleep outside of stores for the Black Friday sales i couldn't help but compare. If you are sleeping outside for the purposes of consumption and purchasing it is not just legal but encouraged in our society. If you try to sleep outside any of those same buildings on any other night of the year because you have nowhere else to go you will be run off, trespassed or arrested. After everybody left and we got the house somewhat cleaned up and we headed out with tents too. Not to the street corners or the market places but rather the 6 of us Lake House guys hit the road to head for Georgia. We drove through the night and arrived at Rock Town Friday morning. We spent the weekend camping, rock climbing, laughing, and just being together with each other and God's beautiful creation. It was a much needed rest and photos and possibly even a short movie are coming soon.

A Brief Reflection on Erica and Jon's Experience 'Surviving Tampa'

2011-11-21T11:51:00.002-05:00

Lake House - Foreground from Underground Network on Vimeo.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

2011-11-10T14:02:00.003-05:00

Last night at home church we went over Luke 6:12-26. A pretty familiar passage for most us, but there was something different about this passage last night. The Holy Spirit took charge and dropped it hard on us, especially me. Here I am, living a "lifestyle" that from an outside point of view might seem radical and extreme sometimes, being challenged by the words of Jesus about the poor. Sure, I live in the innercity supposedly living "among" the poor not realizing that I've been living, to be sincere, far away from them. The thing is that we think we believe something, but when it comes down to act upon it we don't.

Just to be clear the Lake House is a place that where your views will get challenged and when you're getting most comfortable with the lifestyle...Jesus drops the gauntlet. I felt like we were getting away from our call to serve our neighbors, from making room for those "less deserving".

Jesus not only made room for tax collectors, fishermen and zealots, but also for a traitor. Jesus spent the whole night praying and then he calls the twelve among the many. He then proceeds to heal people from diseases and evil spirits. He spent an entire night with the Father...only God knows what went down.

But then Jesus gathers His disciples and the many people that came to see him. He looks at them and goes off with His sermon on the plain. He blesses those who are poor, because the Kingdom of God IS theirs. He also explains how those that are hungry and weeping will be satisfied and filled with laughter...I'm not going to repeat what He says, just look it up.

As I sat in the living room, I looked around me and what did I see? Not the poor. Don't get me wrong--I love the people that come to our house every Wednesday. I love how they love Jesus, I love being in ministry with them. I see many different gifts among them...It's awesome! But one thing we lack is room. We have filled our house with very dear friends, but have forgotten to invite those we were called to serve, those who Jesus calls blessed.

I will stop here for now, and I leave you with a song by Gungor

I was called to be a missionary, although I have been a bad one.

2011-10-26T23:41:00.002-04:00

I have been called to be a missionary. In fact everyone who calls on the name of Christ is called to be a missionary, and the mission field to which they are called is the very place they are standing. We are never to go out anywhere without Christ on our minds, the word of God on our lips, and the gospel in our hands and feet. I recognized this call when I was 17 and have had it on my mind since then, always knowing that I was either walking towards or away from this fulfilling life that was being offered to me. Over the past few years I have recognized it more fully and reluctantly embraced this call. While trying to figure out, kicking and screaming along the way, what it looks like to be a missionary, I had fallen in love with many people that I would have never known how to love otherwise. Truly loving those who have no way of loving me back. At the end of the day I recognize that it was not I that loved them, but God through me, using me as a tool to spread the love of a Maker for that which was made.

In the beginning of my serious pursuit of what it means to be a missionary, three years ago, I met a man named Sam. Sam was a local of Ybor City in Tampa, FL. He has lived there for years and was know to be a local crack addict. When I first moved into the neighborhood he was one of the first men I met. He would offer to wash my truck for a few dollars, have me drop him off at local shelters late at night with $12 in hand. It was always $12. Over time I had learned of his addiction, his homelessness, and the situation he had found himself in. He became a friend of mine, a friend of ours at the Lake House. Much of the friendship was difficult. At one point we let him borrow our lawnmower to make money, which he never returned. We actually did this twice. You would think one would learn. But through all these troubles and over the years we worked with him, trying to find him sobriety and a stable life. Once he had been sober for 3 months working on his barbers certificate and a GED education. Shortly after this we watched him spiral once more down into the pit of self-inflicting poverty and under the oppression of addiction. Over time he has had his highs and lows, and then there was nothing. We had not heard word nor had we seen him around town, all we had to offer him were our prayers. In the end, our prayers had been answered. Last month, just before leaving for the Philippines, I received a call from Sam, a healthy Sam. He is living in Zephyrhills now with a full time position as a local barber with over a year of sobriety under his belt. He is following God and has built back up his relationships with the members of his family. He called only to thank the Lake House and me for having patience and treating him with love in spite of any wrongs, and that without the love shown he probably would not be where he is today.

It is beautiful to know that although we may not see the way we have an impact on lives we are making an impact and sharing the love that Christ first gave to us. It is encouraging to know that enduring heartache and betrayal can lead to complete transformation in a person, just showing a person dignity can give them the courage to take a step toward salvation. Although we may plant seeds, we may not always be the ones to harvest or even be able to see the fruits of the harvest.

It is not the end product we look towards, it is only sharing the love and having faith that God provides the end product.

Home church 10/12/11

2011-10-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

What a blessing it is when people gathered to have dinner and study the word of God. We had over 30 people at home church tonight, including 4 moms with their respective children. 4 moms! @ Lake house. Wow, we're reaching the masses. All the joking aside, it was a wonderful time. We cooked chicken basil curry and had some cookies and brownies for dessert. People were fed delicious food along with a passage from Luke. We had so many people that we ran of food and had to improvise. Thanks to Danielle and Megan for helping with the cooking tonight. I was very impressed by Ryan and the way he connected with the new folk. He even sacrifice his own plate of food so someone else could have something.

We had people from all walks of life, which is why I enjoy the Lake house. From a person recently release from jail to a recent college student graduate. From young to old.... I love it.

Criminalizing Poverty

2011-10-06T10:45:00.002-04:00

I'm going to go back to February of this year,which was before the election. And I'm going to tell you a story. I was advised by a member of the previous administration, and was, that if I voted, if I did not vote for the, the banning of (panhandling on) arterial roads, that I probably wouldn't be back here in March. I took it very seriously. And it went from first reading to second reading. At second reading, I stood here, I sat here, my knees were shaking. I listened and listened and listened. And I wanted to be able to hear what I needed to hear to bring that vote forward. But what I heard was people losing their jobs. And so I had to come to conclusion. And my conclusion was this. That if a job was to be lost, it would be mine, not theirs. And I did not vote for it. Not only did I not vote for it, it changed the vote on Council. I am here today.

-Councilwoman Capin, voted this week to ban panhandling

Our city council, under immense pressure to pass an ordinance to get the poor off our city streets, has been discussing a panhandling ban for over a year now. It is a problematic law that has been difficult to write in a way that could be defended as constitutional. Council has gone back and forth with ideas and compromises. The first idea was a full ban, then a compromise of a ban on arterial roads was proposed and voted down by the previous council, who clearly favored a full ban. Then there was the proposal of a five day ban that would allow street solicitation on the weekends but this was not supported because it could not be demonstrated that weekends were safer that weekdays to stand on the corners. It has not been easy task to single out and legislate against the homeless since as Councilman Cohen stated “We are operating within murky constitutional parameters.” After a year of legal gymnastics, they finally passed an ordinance that remotely approaches constitutionality. Really its more about avoiding a lawsuit. Councilwoman Mulhurn, the only voice of conscience on council, stated “We have to realize that there is no public safety need for this. And then, let's move on to what our legal department's been telling us about how we can make all these exceptions. What if we make no exceptions and we just don't do it? Then we don't have to defend a law. But the reality is, who is going to sue the city? It's not going to be homeless people. It's not going to be people selling flowers and water on the street. They can't afford to sue us. So who could possibly sue us? The unions or the Tribune. So we're making these decision...based on who can afford to sue us, and that is very sad.”

Probably not kosher but whatevs

2011-10-05T10:33:00.003-04:00

Love you guys!!! Here is my blog: http://damayanglagi.blogspot.com

Remembering Francis

2011-10-04T15:35:00.004-04:00

Canticle of the Sun

Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord,

All praise is yours: all glory, honor and blessings.

To you alone, Most High do they belong;

no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your Name.

We praise you, Lord, for all your creatures,

Especially for brother Sun,

Through whom you give us light.

He is beautiful, radiant with great splendor,

and in this he bears your likeness.

We praise you, Lord for sister Moon and the Stars.

In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

We praise you, Lord for brothers Wind and Air,

fair and stormy, and all weather's moods,

by which you cherish all that you have made.

We praise you, Lord for sister Water,

so useful, humble, precious and pure.

We praise you, Lord for brother Fire,

through whom you light the night.

He is beautiful, playful, robust and strong.

We praise you, Lord for sister Earth,

who sustains us with her fruits, colored flowers and herbs.

We praise you, Lord for those who pardon,

who for love of you bear sickness and trial.

Blessed are those who endure in peace;

they will be crowned by you, Most High.

We praise you, Lord for sister Death,

from whom no living person can escape.

Woe to those who die in their sins!

Blessed are those she finds doing your will.

No second death can do them harm.

We praise and bless you, Lord and give you thanks,

and serve you in all humility.

St. Francis of Assisi

Congratulations, Will & Laura Barrett

2011-09-23T02:12:00.000-04:00

We're proud of you, Will.

Feed the hungry (somewhere else)

2011-09-14T14:01:00.004-04:00

The Vicenete Martinez Ybor Neighborhood Association is rallying together in opposition to a local organization that serves meals to hungry neighbors. For ten years, Trinity Cafe has been serving meals restaurant-style: china and flatware on a cloth-covered table, with respect and dignity for the people served.

Neighbors are concerned about crime going up and property values going down. Not that they are opposed to any of these negative effects happening elsewhere, just not in their neighborhood. Nor is the V. M. Ybor Neighborhood Association concerned about homelessness or hunger in Tampa, just the sight of it on their streets. How individualized have we become? If people could be dying one street away, and somehow it wouldn't affect my house or your house, would we then not care? If we could tint the windows of our cars with suffering-opaque tinting so that we couldn't see hurting people as we drive to work, would we be OK with that?

House Day: September 2011

2011-09-05T13:48:00.006-04:00

Once each month, the whole lot of us Lake Housemates spend the day together. Very often we spend the time doing some kind of work, a project for productive bonding. This September's house day saw us working on our property to streamline the needless clutter, and to take better care of what we have.

The endless summer finally comes to an end

2011-08-25T12:46:00.006-04:00

It has been an intense summer, filled with projects and plans. Here is a recap of all of our project related accomplishments over the summer:

Painted roof white (which really helped to bring down the temperature within the house)
Got the aquaponics system back up and running (no tilapia, but we have plenty of apple snails)
We built the solar hot-water heater.
We built the trellis system on west side of house to block out the evening sun (now we are waiting on the plants to grow)
Finished setting up the mosquito netting on all the windows and doors
Mortared up the bricks in the St. Francis garden.
Topped off the gardens with fresh mulch and compost for the winter season
Installed a ridge vent in the attic
Cleaned out and organized shed
Built a better chicken run area
Moved the dryer outside
Finished installing the dual flush toilets
Bought a new energy and water efficient washer machine
Installed the crazily efficient dish drying rack
Installed a better lighting system in the kitchen

I am also amazed by how much we haven't done. I am impressed by our collective will to sacrifice things.

We haven't:

Used A/C (except for during homechurch and during a visit from a close friend)
Used the dryer, ever since it was moved to the front porch (maybe 2-3 months)
Used hot water...that was until the solar hot water heater was finally built.

It has been wonderful.

Summer has been rough.

2011-08-25T12:35:00.002-04:00

I guess that's nothing new, but it feels fresh right now. We're still shaking off the dust, gaining our bearings again, and beginning to figure out where to go from here. Or maybe we're still sitting in the dirt, wondering whether we can or should go on. Now more than ever are we blessed with memory. We look at what has come to pass so that we may know what is to come. We have seen our weakness, and seen a strength at work through it. We have known discomfort, only to find that we live in opulence. The road we walk has turned out to be tougher than we are, so that we can't possibly make it through, but we make it still. Our past calls out to our future so loudly that it almost drowns out the groaning present. Ever caught between memory and hope we live, and so we look to the One in Whom the furthest extent of both memory and hope dwell, in Whom we live and move and have our being.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above,
I know not of His hate,—I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruisèd reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

John Greenleaf Whittier

What is Love?

2011-08-19T03:10:00.001-04:00

The Power of Food: A walk through the yard

2011-08-19T00:25:00.000-04:00

The Power of Food: A walk through the yard: So its summer and in florida that means it is HOT! Summer is considered our dead season as far as growing food goes. Most things just don'...

Solar Water Heater

2011-08-08T17:50:00.005-04:00

I woke up this morning at 3 am. The August heat just wouldn’t let me go back to bed. Rather than waste time tossing and turning, I decided to finish making the connections for our solar hot water heater. I had spent countless hours the previous day gluing PVC and twisting iron pipes, but I only ended up flooding the kitchen and leaving the house without water. The few hours of sleep had given me some clarity and I attacked the problem from a different angle. By the time the sun started to peak its head over the horizon, all the connections were in place and the solar hot water heater was officially up and running.

We used to pay 60 or so dollars a month to heat water. That means we paid, the earth paid and those that live in coal producing countries paid the burden of the simple luxury that is hot water. That’s now a thing of the past. Rather than using up the earth’s resources, we have decided to hire the sun do what it does best: blast everything with is warm embrace.

The technology isn’t perfect; we will have to shower in the evenings (when the water is at its warmest), we will also have to deal with cloudy days and winter’s wrath. But, it’s a technology I can be proud of. It is another step towards having a sustainable and just existence. I am always blown away by the simple fact that if everyone on the planet had something as simple as hot water (the way that we normally produce it in the US) there wouldn’t be enough coal and oil to do anything else (including transportation, industry etc). Using the sun to heat water paints a very different picture, everyone should be able to do that…

Let us learn to use the things God has given us intelligently and justly. Thank God for the sun. Thank you Jamie Trahan, Jim De Mauro, Alex Lin, Mike Bair and all the others that have helped with the success of this project.

A Letter Home

2011-08-01T12:14:00.013-04:00

Lakehousians,

Everything that has been happening has made me think about 'home' in a real way. Home isn't necessarily the house we live in and yet the Lake House is our home. Sometimes things feel like home or taste like home or smell like home. What is home then? It’s a question I've been thinking about all weekend.

Does home have to do with feeling safe?

What about being comfortable?

Our house is very uncomfortable in that we don't use a/c, there are ten of us here and its chaotic and dirty most of the time. But Home is that way for me now. I sometimes wonder, if a visitor from haiti or El Salvador were travelling in tampa, would our house feel more like home to him than other places he may visit here. And safe? Our home has felons crashing on the couch and thieves often trying to sneak into the yard but I just don't think it would be home if there weren’t.
Home is my community. Also, many people have joined our family and many have been called or just decided to go elsewhere. They are still family but they are not at home anymore. The most stable thing about our house and community are our values. All of the people may (and often do) change and the entire house may decay but the values are forever. They are a gift. It has really hit me that home is where we commit to Jesus and each other, home is where we share and give, home is where we experiment and build, home is where we welcome guests, home is where we fight and forgive, home is where we grow watermelons and okra, home is where we have a ton of fun and also take things seriously, home is where we, a family united by Jesus, are doing everything we know to do to see his kingdom come. I am a sojourner and a stranger with you, citizens of heaven. Our home is in Jesus and therefore we can be at home wherever he is being pursued. I am both excited to chase after God with this group of women and I am excited to visit and stay connected with you, my family, my people.
Friday at morning prayer we read from Matthew 12: While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
I just couldn’t take it. It was as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest and affirmed at the same moment. I wept from the pain of leaving but also the joy that is the gift of living among Jesus’ ‘brothers and sisters, and mother.’ I was overwhelmed by my love for each of you and my excitement to see you rise to the occasion and really really LOVE each other, and Jesus , and Jason, and Momma, and Benji, and Ryan, and everyone else that God brings your way. I expect so much from you all. I know your gifts and your struggles and I just want to ask you to fight harder, stand stronger, and push into God right now. You are each at a threshold and God is calling you into a new place of commitment and sacrifice. I know those words are hard at times, but it is worth it. I just pray that through all my anger, and belligerence and obvious weaknesses you were able to see an example of that. Jesus is real and risen and alive and among us! I see him walking among you and sharing in our life together. He is worthy of all glory, honor, praise, sacrifice, and love. The call is great and it is costly but his Kingdom is worth everything. Please push through temptation for the sake of each other. Don’t ever give up or let each other stumble. The Lake House is an amazing outpost of the kingdom and it is you who make it what it is. Thank you for every way your life is surrendered. The values are nothing unless you value them. Then they are earthshaking.
I know this reads like I’m moving to Australia or something and I promise that isn’t the case. I am committed to you all and promise to be around and involved and active in the life of our community. I am not breaking with you but I am moving down the street and am open to God doing what he will with me and us, and Natalia, and the women. I am hopeful that a women’s community will emerge from this that is more connected and ‘Lake House’ than anything we might have constructed ourselves. I’m reminded that “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.”

In His Hands,

Jon

Blood, sweat and tears...Actually, mostly sweat.

2011-07-22T12:50:00.002-04:00

A couple of months ago, after praying and careful consideration, I decided to move into an intentional community in the inner city of Tampa. The Lake House is a community of men that has been around for about three years. Since its inception, about 7 years ago, the lake house has had women and men living in the same house (with a wall dividing the house), married couples living in the garage and plenty of visitors which are too many to name.

The house is located just a block off Nebraska ave and only steps away from the liquor store. There’s gang activity not too far from here and Nebraska ave turns into a walkway for lone souls late at night. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, since the beginning of this year there has been 101 crimes committed in a 3 miles radius. The bulk of it (43.56%) have been drug-related incidents with 44, which includes possession, trafficking and delivery. Common sense will discourage most people to live on a neighborhood like this. I mean, didn’t my family move to the USA to provide my sister and I with better opportunities? Am I not supposed to accomplish the American Dream? A nice job or business, a nice home, a family, enough money to travel and to give to charity? Is it not the pinnacle of our lives to be able to live comfortable and admiring lives?

These are questions that have plague my mind ever since Jesus became a priority in my life. Apart from the many questions about philosophy and theology, the questions about practice are the ones that have really intrigued me the most. What does the bible say about practicing our faith? How does that look like culturally, economically and socially in our context? These are questions that i don't have complete answers for, but as I dive deep into the relationship Jesus is offering for me i learn more and more. I hope that through living in the Lake House community I’m able to learn from these men that have been at it since a few years ago.

For those of you that know a little bit of the history of the Church, the Lake House looks like a modern monastic movement, currently referred as new monasticism. We’re not monks or take bows, we don’t shave our heads, even though sometimes it happens by mistake, we did not recluse to the farthest point possible from society, yet we live within the margins of society. We plant and grow food: Tomates, pimentones, cilantro, frijoles, sandias and mucho mas. We mostly love each other with an occasional hint of recent. We’re broken people reaching to broken people by pointing to the one true God.

Living here has been a blessing from God. From the late night conversations to the occasional bike rides. It all has been a blessing. I remember moving in in the first week having some expectations of what “community living” looks like. That very first weekend some of the guys went camping and i was left by myself to ponder on some aspects and choices that involved living with others intentionally. Living at the Lake House and sharing my life with its members has been in a sense transparent. I cannot recluse to my room and hide my emotions, i have had to confront my fears and realize that my life is not my own. While dealing with different issues some of the guys have gone through, i realize that those issues are not as foreign as i thought.
Those same issues have been concealed deep within my heart and now Jesus is using a group of men to bring those out. We counsel each other, we joke around, we stumble and we pray. Jesus is in the midst of everything, in our decisions to invite people, how we buy our groceries and how we used our energy. We are family because of Him, nothing else. If it was not because the Grace of Christ, this community would have folded ages ago.

This is still a journey and i have 8 more months of it. I sincerely pray that God will use the Lake House to shape and mold me to the His image. May His name be glorified forever and ever.

Surviving Tampa

2011-07-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

Surviving Tampa by Erica Santuccio & Jon Dengler | Make Your Own Book

The "Drug Bust" Across the Street

2011-07-07T10:09:00.003-04:00

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If you google 'tampa restaurants' and look at the map that pops up and zoom in to my neighborhood you won't see any of those red tabs. There are a couple small red dots which are a Checkers and the always delicious 'Gyro Land', a small private food stop. If you look at our same hood but search liquor stores you will see about 8 of those little flags pop up in the same community. Our neighborhood is not unique in this way but is a typical inner-city community. We have lived across from OK Liquors for years now. They do well and have a drive through that stays pretty busy. People walk over from every direction in the neighborhood pretty regularly. There are often groups of people congregated on the corner next to it.
I am sickened by the way I have seen addictions wreck the lives of people that I love, people that Jesus loves too. I hate that our neighborhoods possibly most thriving small business is a liquor store. I am disturbed by the glowing temptation that this place is to those in a recovery house not even a block from it. I guess I should rejoice that this place is closed....at least for now. I am still sad to see the lights out on the building and the corner becoming docile. I am sad to see our neighbors put into police cars for any reason. I am sad that its all over such a stupid thing. I am praying for our neighbors that ran the store & I am praying for our neighbors that depended on the store.

Jesus, would you break the chains of addiction in our neighborhood.

From Ancient Rome to Modern Tampa: Empire, Occupation, and The Way of Jesus

2011-06-28T12:45:00.001-04:00

This morning has left my mind spinning in reflection on the police in our neighborhood. We have lived in the neighborhood for a little under a decade now and I have only grown more and more uncomfortable with the police here. I have had police run up on a homeless friend and I as we talked on the corner of Nebraska and Lake. Their cars jumped the curbs and they catapulted from their cars in full force to stop what must be a drug deal. I, and many other white friends, have been stopped and either interrogated just for being in this neighborhood or offered help since we were obviously lost. One friend was robbed at gunpoint and then after flagging down a cop for help, he was interrogated for being here for drugs. The cops only added trauma to the traumatic. They never even considered that he was telling the truth. We have witnessed and reported a cop in this neighborhood push a little kid down. We have been pulled over constantly for the slightest of reasons and occasionally no reason at all. They fly past our house at a speed that will kill anyone in their path on a nightly basis, there sirens lull us to sleep each night, and the sound of that ‘ghetto bird’ is as much a part of our evening sky as the moon.

This morning we had a friend join us for prayer and breakfast. He is a black man with dreadlocks. We had a wonderful morning joining him in his ‘power breathing exercises’, eating, praying, and discussing Haiti. As he left our house with his backpack and two apples in hand a police spun around and pulled up on him like he was fleeing a crime scene. The cop starts accusing and questioning him. “Do you live here?” “What are you doing?” Our friend just hung his head and waited for one of us to come out and tell the officer to leave our friend alone and assure the cop that he was a guest of ours.

As I left for work I kept thinking to myself that this must be what it is like to live under a military occupation. I know this may be an exaggeration but I am not sure how much of one it is. Our neighborhood is under constant patrol by a hostile and prejudice force. Their presence is a constant reality to me and my neighbors. This constant presence is not a comfort to any of us. It is a threat. It is oppressive in nature. Our neighborhood has the feeling of an occupied territory.

This thought immediately led me to reflect on Jesus who absolutely lived in an occupied territory. Roman soldiers were a constant presence and threat in first century Palestine and his words from that context are relevant to us today. In that day a roman soldier could randomly choose any individual and force them, by law, to carry their bags one mile. This is why people used to set up ‘mile stones’ a mile from their house so when they reached that point they could drop the bags and return to their houses and lives. It is in this context that Jesus said if someone forces you to walk with them one mile…"Go two!”

I have got to be honest that I have no clue how to apply this teaching. I don’t like it and this reflection is far from over. This question is at the heart of Christian nonresistance and nonviolent resistance. I am reminded of Tolstoy, Gandhi, & King and can’t help but cringe on the inside at their ideas and lives. They are counter to every natural reaction in me and they are heroic for that same reason.

Tolstoy said “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Jesus, help me see you and walk in your ways. I know that you embraced and died on the cross of that occupying people.

It is scandalous!

Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative.

2011-06-24T12:38:00.001-04:00

So yesterday I woke up early to pray and eat breakfast with my community. We all gathered in the family room and had a great time of prayer. While we were praying 'Empress' Mary came to the door. Natalia went and sat with her while we continued praying. We just met Empress Mary the other day through a guy that was crashing at our house for a few nights. She is also on the streets and we have been doing our best to find female friends to put her up since we can't really host women guests in a house full of guys. She dropped in to get a shower and spend some time with us. We all chipped in after prayer to make a big breakfast to eat together and had her join us. It really was an awesome morning and I realized later how opportunities to love people literally just knock on our door. I am so grateful.
Then the day was filled with work at the HUB and a few meetings throughout the day. The Banquet (our thursday meal for neighbors that need it) was scheduled for the evening and the two main guys that run it were both gonna miss for different reasons. I made a few calls and friends that have my back came through to take care of the meal and make sure everything was taken care of and that all of our guests felt loved. It is so wonderful (and necessary) to have community in mission. I am so grateful.
I came home pretty exhausted from a full day. When I arrived I saw the lot next to our house full of cars and wondered what was happening. As I came in, the house was alive! David was teaching a spanish class in the library/eating room for about 6 or 7 friends. Robby was in the back yard with a bunch of friends/students/alumni from USF working on building a solar hot-water heater. Meanwhile Natalia was wandering the yard doing odds and ends throughout the gardens, cliff was washing a mountain of dishes and then a bunch more people showed up to go for a jog together and a few more to meet empress mary and hang out for a little while. God has given our community such favor. I am so grateful.

I also think it is worth mentioning after all of the air conditioning debates, our air is still off. We have wondered many times if people want to be at our house when it is this hot. I think last night was a glowing response to that question. They were hot and sweaty with us but they stayed there with us too. It afforded us countless opportunities to answer the question 'Why are you guys doing this?' I really believe God is at work in peoples hearts as we answer 'To break our addiction to comfort, to lessen our ecological footprint, to stand in solidarity with the poor, to save some money, and to learn creativity over compromise.' For a community and friends that chose each other over comfort, I am so grateful.
I laid down to sleep with sweat beading on my forehead and just smiled in gratefulness for such a wealthy and blessed life. God has been so good to us.

From a quick list i just jotted down I know of 22 people that were around the house last night!I am so grateful.

Underground Catering By Erica Santuccio

2011-06-20T11:19:00.002-04:00

Forever my dream has been to open a restaurant. As a kid, I would “cook” and “serve” plastic food out of my fisher price kitchen set in my bedroom and then every afternoon sit on the floor, legs crossed watching the Food Network. I would paint refrigerator boxes and “sell” construction paper candy to mom’s customers outside her salon. Each weekend I would set up a lemonade stand at the end of my driveway and make roughly $4.00 with my best friend. Growing up with a father who is obsessed with food only sparked my interest and desire to learn more. Shortly after turning 18 I went to college and got a degree in Food Service Management. Now, im here in Tampa and I feel as though it has just begun.

I am in complete shock.

There is no stress comparable to food stress. Having worked on the line at a full service restaurant and as a baker’s assistant during the holiday season, I’ve experienced every kind of cooking anxiety. There never seems to be enough time, enough food, enough tools or enough help but historically, it always works out. Don’t get me wrong, little mishaps happen here and there (like buying spoons instead of knives or adding baking soda instead of baking powder) but most of the time I’m surprised by how smooth things run in the end.

Tonight Jon and I cooked for a banquet (the debut of Underground Catering) celebrating the ladies of Mama Africana and I couldn’t be more honored. We spent hours on menu ideas and plate designs, 4 days of shopping and food prep, an afternoon making BBQ sauce and BBQ rub from scratch and close to 13 hours cooking. We pulled it off and it was an amazing experience.

BBQ Chicken
Brown Sugar glazed carrots
Wild and Long Grain Rice
Strawberry Balsamic spinach salad with red onions, strawberries and feta cheese
Cornbread muffins
Sweet Tea

It almost feels like a dream now that it’s over. It’s safe to say that I feel overwhelmed with joy. Over the past few months I’ve begun to realize that God has something pretty big in store for me and tonight made me want to shout praises from the rooftops. I’m so excited that He has chosen Jon and I grow, cook and serve food. I’m terrified by how fast my life is moving but I can’t help but smile and jump up and down with excitement. There is no greater feeling (for me) than to get a handshake or a hug followed by “I loved your food.” Having cooked for an estimated total of 150 people, we had a good amount of extra/leftover food. After packing up, we drove straight to the Good Sam still in our chef coats and plated the rest of the food to all the men (and a handful of women) who were staying there tonight. They devoured the food. Serving the people at the Good Sam our food made from scratch made me so happy that I wanted to cry. They loved it. My favorite feedback of the night was “Y’all are doin’ it. This is right. Real good and Praise God. I really appreciate you.” I want to bring them food every time that we cook for an event.

The whole night has left me speechless and I am just overwhelmed by God’s love. I’m embarrassed by my various frustrations throughout the past few days but my faith in Jesus is growing by the minute. I want to fully trust Him in all things. My passion for food is just burning in my heart and I’m so excited to start this journey full speed ahead.

Everything feels right.

-Erica

Its getting hot in here....

2011-06-17T13:01:00.001-04:00

So there is so much happening right now. Our friend Jason has just returned from prison and we are so grateful for his return! We have been trying to make some time to spend with him to catch up on all the fishing, eating, and just walking around he has missed out on over time. Also Erica and I have been working hard on our first catering gig for the Mama Africana Banquet this saturday. We are cooking for 150 people and are so excited to do it. This is a beginning for us as we continue down this journey with food. (If any of you need an event catered I would love the opportunity to serve your gathering in this way. Just let us know)

I have been teaching a class for the Underground Institute called Jesus and Urban Gardening. The class has 30 students and has met twice so far (out of 8 total meetings). Each week we spend an hour outside learning and practicing some basic gardening skill that are useful in the context of the city and our second hour is spent in our friend Derick's house diving into an ecological theology of liberation. This is by far the most personally challenging (and fulfilling) teaching experience I have had. I hope to do this much more in the future.
There are many other projects and undertakings as cliff tinkers in the kitchen and robby keeps tackling the heat in the house through creativity. But alongside all of what is happening there is an ongoing and challenging conversation and debate. Last night I walked into our smoldering hot house to find the guys sitting around and having what sounded like a pretty heated debate. It was about the AC. Some of us are uncomfortable but proud of that fact. Others, who are troopers, have wavering conviction or possibly more questions than conviction at all. How can someone put up with this heat unless they are driven too? As i walked in I heard one of our guys say something to the effect of 'Are we just supposed to come in here and die?' as if being hot (uncomfortable) was a deadly thing. I didn't jump in to the conversation but just kinda listened as they had it. I recognize that it is getting hotter every night and there is a really good chance that we will break and turn on the AC at some point in the near future but I hope we don't give in until we are able to call it a luxury. Until we realize that the majority of the world lives there entire lives without AC and they are not gathering in their houses at night to argue about the merits of it because it isn't a choice. The fact that we even have a choice on this matter points to our wealth and privilege. People throughout the world, and many up and down our own street don't have AC and they still gather together and enjoy each other, there lives are still beautiful and appreciated, and they live lives that are not consumed by this discomfort. It is my belief that as long as we can hold on, through our discomfort and frustration, God is faithfully purifying us. Breaking us from our addiction to comfort, freeing us from our dependencies, helping us walk in solidarity with the poor, deepening our community through the ordeal, and bringing what is ugly in us out so that we can deal with it together. It is so much deeper than AC. Some of us hold convictions strongly and are still insensitive jerks, others are struggling with strength in the face of trial, others bottle up frustration and allow anger to conquer them, some of us just don't care or think enough about what is important. These are not fingers to point but realizations about my own sin and ugliness and I sometimes recognize it in my brothers as well.

May the heat purify us, may the discomfort sharpen us, may the sweat cleanse our eyes, may our impurities be removed. God thank you for the rain that you sent to give just a few minutes of breeze the other night just as we were about to give in to our desire for AC. I can't help but feel your presence, your mercy, and your egging us on.

The Spiritual Discipline of Sweating

2011-05-31T10:13:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow will be the first day of June and we have yet to use our air conditioning (except for home church nights and one weekend that we hosted a few guests). We have done everything we can to stay cool. We have drug the oven to the front porch so as not to produce heat in the house, we have put screens on every window so that we can have the house fully ventilated, and we have pretty much (by necessity) all begun taking quick and cold showers to cool off and rinse of all the funk, and we have all begun drinking more water. We are pushing ourselves to fore go this luxury for the sake of both our own formation as well as in protest to our consumptive and entitled culture that recklessly burns huge amounts of coal to keep our dens comfy. I thank God every time I see one of my sweaty and lethargic community members. They resemble the poor that I have seen throughout the world a little more each day. Yes, because they are hot and sweaty, because they can see air conditioning for what it is....Luxurious, and not a necessity. Each day they are a little more set free from their addiction to comfort. Each day they have to fight a little bit to keep going. Each day they get a little stronger as their conviction and discipline have to meet and wrestle a little deeper within. We have chosen creativity over compromise and I am proud of my guys and my gal. They are living as best as they know how in a way that they believe the world could sustain and I am in awe. It is an honor so sweat with them. I don't care what anybody says I know that sweating is spiritual.

From the streets, to an apartment, to a Kingdom

2011-05-05T16:54:00.001-04:00

My Friend Dave was a middle class man that hit the streets as we are seeing more an more lately. He is always talking about the conversions he has been having. His first conversion he describes as an intellectual conversion that took place as he got to know people who were on the streets. His mind was radically changed as he realized that he could no longer blame these folks for where they were and could no longer call them lazy or sorry. He got to know them and the weight of their reality. He then had what he described as a spiritual conversion as he realized that he was becoming more and more dependant on God and finding God among his new friends on the streets. We have known him and walked with him through these experiences as well as him getting an apartment! That was a very exciting day. Now after many discussions, debates, and joining the Lake House home church Dave has surrendered His life to Jesus! His birthday just fell on a Wednesday night which is when home church meets so we made a birthday party out of it at a nearby beach where we baptized him too! Its been a joy walking from the streets to the kingdom with Dave!

The Changing of Seasons

2011-05-04T10:17:00.003-04:00

I am preparing to leave within the next week and a half to go on quite a different adventure than the last couple years have provided me. I am nervous about this change. I do not like leaving because I know I will miss my brothers and sisters. I know the application of all I have experienced will be tried and I will have to toil in quite a different way. Living at the Lake House has been quite a different experience. Moving in I thought "How exciting. I'm living in community and experiencing a new environment with some of the most liberal Christians I have met. I can experience God in a new and more real way than I have before." And I did just that; it was awesome. In the beginning parts of me were pealed away. I have compared this to an onion. In the beginning I was challenged on parts of myself that I expected to be challenged on, the outer layers of the onion were pealed as expected. But then challenge and conviction came closer to the heart, parts of my life that were not up for grabs....they were mine to hold onto. And this hurt. Among all the joy and wonderful life that I have had living with these men, I have experienced the most convicting pain of my life. God stepped in and revealed things in my life that I had not even thought of. Areas of my life that were not as he wanted them to be. I dug my feet into the ground , the stubborn ass that I am. I would not move of my own accord, so I was dragged kicking and screaming through conviction and trial and purification. Goodness and righteousness is not a fairytale land , it is not even a place at all. It is a process of burning away the imperfections that exist within your life, most of which we don't even know exist. I thought myself much better than I actually was. And like any good refiner does, he heats up the metal that the imperfections may rise and be scraped away. This fairytale land of goodness that I thought would happen when moving into the Lake House was not the paradise that I had imagined. It became a fire that began a burning process that will continue throughout my life. It ignited, or maybe flamed a fire that began the refining process. God has taken parts of my life captive through these men and they have put up with my inaction, my fear and my stubbornness.

So, because of all of this, I thank them for allowing God to use them in this process. For not being afraid of staring me in the eyes and telling me I am wrong. I thank them for loving me in spite of the ass that I can be. I thank them for patience when all I want to do it flee the environment that hurts. I thank them for enduring the blame I have placed on them at times for the pain I cause myself. More than anything I thank them for allowing God to use them as a tool to help begin this refining process. So as I leave for the summer I pray that they will continue in the wrestling with God; that they will continue on this course of peeling away the layers of life that we have covered over ourselves in spite of the pain it may cause us. Continue to encourage, whispering into the ears of all those who are on the brink of running home to comfort that they were made for much greater and that should they endure the pain, God will bring peace into their lives in spite of the pain. Continue to be Barnabas to all those who are encountered, the sons of encouragement. Thank you for being my family, and I do love each and everyone of you.

And so to end this blog I must do what is expected and end with a quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

Integration: How do you rejoin society? Thoughts after 30 day local food experiment

2011-05-02T13:13:00.003-04:00

Local Food, Sharing Groceries, and Creativity

So as my 100 mile food experiment has come to a close I realize that I am not excited to go back. I look at things around me in our house and just don’t want them. I don’t want to eat food that you unwrap and I don’t want oreos or soda or cake or cereal. At least at this point I seem to have a craving for the foods that I have been eating over the last month. It’s actually quite shocking. I knew I wanted to try to keep eating as locally as possible but never could have anticipated this strange aversion to foods that I have loved and craved. It’s just gone. So I kept my contribution to the houses food money back last month during the experiment so that I could get my own local food to eat. They were fine with that. But now the experiment is over and I need to contribute again and share groceries again. I do want to but am also conflicted about almost everything they normally get to eat. And that’s saying something because I live in a community that has a lot of food convictions already. They strive to find fair trade products and environmentally conscious products. I am still nervous because I read labels on packages and stickers on fruit. Over the last month I realized that all of the fruit that they eat comes from other countries all together (By the way I have nothing against trade with foreign nations but we just don’t need FOOD to travel like that) and all of the processed foods they buy are full of crap. There is nothing natural about Nature’s Valley. I want to share my convictions and continue to experiment with food and I also want to be sensitive to their wants and habits. I requested that my grocery contribution as well as Ryan’s contribution be set aside for us to take care of produce and butter. That means that at least we will get locally grown organic produce and real butter from a local dairy farm. They were game and I will purchase the food and eat it but will also see it used by the guys in the house as ingredients in their own cooking and recipes. As we discussed this option Robby brought up a really great question. Since local food is more expensive then how are we gonna balance this growing conviction with our core principles of hospitality and sharing? I really thought this was a great question for us to wrestle with. It’s one I could see myself asking if it was someone else making the request and I am really glad he put it out there for us to discuss. It is true that we will spend more on less food and it just isn’t enough to say God will provide (even though he always does.) We can’t be buying this food unless we are going to share it freely. We can’t buy food that we don’t have enough of. My response was that he is right but that we solve these problems by creativity rather than compromise. We are growing as much food as we can, I have places where I am looking to salvage ‘local trash’ (I don’t care where food came from once we start wasting it), and we also have a network of gardens throughout our community that we installed and can grow a row to supplement our grocery supply for meals we serve. There are ways for us to hold tight to both convictions rather that feel like they need to be pitted against each other. I am excited to learn new ways and I am excited to be a part of a family that is open to new ways. May God guide us.

Day 28: A few more food thoughts

2011-04-27T14:01:00.000-04:00

Expense

I really wonder what it is that we actually pay for. We mostly pay for convenience I imagine. Prepared food , processed and packaged food. We like thinks like grab&go snacks or lunches and we like to be served ready to eat dishes. These are the things that we might pay a little more for. But then what about our groceries? We buy lots of ingredient type staples like dairy. We buy items such as eggs, butter (or margarine), milk, yogurt, and cheese. During this month I have found these items from a local source and bought them. First let me say that it was worth every dollar I spent on it and second let me tell you what it cost. A gallon of cow milk was $8.50 (goat milk was 12), a 1/2 lbs of butter was 7 bucks as was the ¼ lbs of gouda cheese. I just bought a dozen eggs for 4.25 and I believe I paid 7 or 8 bucks for a small ½ lbs tub of cottage cheese (which was amazing!). When I first heard these prices I couldn’t believe how expensive it all was but then I sat and thought about the prices that I am used to paying for such items. Take eggs for example, when I buy a dozen eggs at the store for 2 bucks or less I am getting eggs that have been mass produced (in industry farms) and shipped clear across the country to our supermarket for roughly .16 cents per egg. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? As I wake up each morning and go into the kitchen praying that there is something to eat I would gladly pay at least .35 cents for an egg! That’s what an egg cost’s when I get it locally at 4.25 a dozen. It’s actually a fair and realistic price. Not to mention I know that that money is going to sustain one of the few family farms in our area that hasn’t yet been taken out by these big factory scale food producers. I wonder if we might better value luxuries such as milk if we started paying these prices regularly. Where else would we need to pinch pennies? Maybe we would need to sacrifice all of the quick and convenient type ‘foods’ that we have grown so fond of. Maybe we would not leave a half a cup of milk lying around and maybe we would take a little more heat from our family when we did. Maybe we wouldn’t slam glasses of milk like they are water and we would see it more as a commodity than a carrier that is dumped after we finish the cereal that was in it. Maybe we wouldn’t eat cereal anymore. Maybe we have to bake more often with it to replace the snacks that we can no longer afford. Maybe these local farms would be able to thrive and we would delight in eating food that has come from within just miles of our houses. Maybe we would feel right about having seen the chickens that laid the eggs and knowing that they are well cared for animals. Maybe we realize that we have been paying too great a price for cheap and convenient food. Maybe it’s time we actually assess the true value in our food.

Pace

Another important thing that has happened as we have eaten locally is that I have slowed down tremendously. I don’t really think I have been that much less productive but I have definitely spent Way more time thinking about, finding, and preparing food. I am actually now a fan or the idea of a family member (of any gender) being set aside to just do these tasks like house wives were in the past. It could rightfully be a full time job to feed a family well. I needed salt and had to go to the ocean and get a bottle of water and then put it in a pan on my roof for the week to evaporate it and get salt. Do you think I am using too much salt now? It has tremendous value to me and I am using it as sparingly as possible. Erica just got a job that she has to show up at 7am so we were not able to make our breakfast in the mornings anymore. We had to either think ahead or go without. We have done both but thinking ahead is definitely a better choice. So in the evening while preparing dinner we have also begun thinking about breakfast for the morning. If we were to live on local, or even just seasonal food we would always have to think ahead. Recipes would change with the seasons and we would probably all start learning skills like canning and pickling so that we could occasionally enjoy an okra in the off season. Our pace would be drastically changed by food. I think that this is only a good thing. Our culture has become so driven by speed that convenience has been made a chief virtue in food sales. I wanna drive up to a window and get lunch without even getting out of my car, open the fridge and just unwrap breakfast, and I want someone to drop a cooked dinner off at my table. It’s not just that we don’t wanna prepare our food or even that we don’t know how to anymore but that we have devalued food to the point that it is just another task that needs checked off, unless it’s a moment of indulgence of course. We need to slow down and reconnect with the source of our food as well as the process of preparing it. We need to realize that vegetables are slow to come and too quick to go. We need to eat our pineapples, when we are lucky enough to have one, fully aware that each one takes two years to grow! We need to stop and eat together. We need to eat slower. When we do eat slow our bodies are able to let us know when we have had enough as well and we are that much less likely to be huge and unhealthy. We are unhealthy because of the speed at which we eat, the kinds of things we eat because we are on the move, and because we live our lives without resting, enjoying each other, or taking time to be with God. Our pace is killing us.

A Few Small Food Reflections after 26 days or Eating Local

2011-04-25T15:17:00.004-04:00

Sharing

Over the month Erica and I have formed a strong bond over food. It is strong enough to make me cut my one egg in half every morning and drive the other half of it to her. It is strong enough to make me hesitate to eat something without knowing where she is, if she has eaten, and if there is a way I can share. There have also been weird expressions of this sentiment like when Erica accidentally ate a couple noodles while we were cooking a non local meal for our home church. She wanted so badly for me to have a few noodles too. I actually don’t know why but it seemed like it had something to do with being fair and something to do with not being alone in ‘transgression’. Whatever the reason the truth of the feeling of sharing and being together as it relates to food is clear and strong. It hit me yesterday that this is a really important and good revelation. Not that Erica and I need to eat together (though I am sure we will a lot) but that we would always have that impulse to share our food. There should never be, regardless of scarcity or abundance, possessiveness about food. It is to be shared. I am starting to wonder if it is even really that appropriate to eat alone at all. I’m not looking to pass new laws or anything like that but think it good to hold convictions with such inclinations or leanings. We should second guess such moments.

Vote for DACCO

2011-04-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

Tampa's leading drug addiction recovery center to win fruit tree Orchards for it's residential program! We need your vote every day!

Edy's® Fruit Bars: Where Will You Plant Your Vote?

The Kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power.

2011-04-11T11:35:00.002-04:00

Note: this audio post plays in Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer, but not in Firefox.
Go figure.

From Philly

2011-04-08T00:51:00.014-04:00

I'm remembering now why I love coming here.

I'm staying in one of the houses owned by the St. Francis Inn called Jean Donovan house. As you walk in through the narrow front door of this row house, the first sight is this drawing of lay worker Jean Donovan and the three Maryknoll nuns who were martyred with her in December of 1980.

During the Salvadoran civil war, they provided shelter, transport, food and buried those killed by the military death squads. Jean went to Bishop Romero's cathedral to hear him preach, and later to his funeral, eight months before her own death. She was engaged to a young physician, Douglas Cable, and felt a strong call to motherhood as well as her call to do mission work: "...I sit there and talk to God and say 'Why are you doing this to me? Why can't I just be your little suburban housewife?' He hasn't answered yet."

Weeks before being beaten, raped and killed by a government death squad, she wrote to her friend, “The Peace Corps left today and my heart sank low. The danger is extreme and they were right to leave... Now I must assess my own position, because I am not up for suicide. Several times I have decided to leave El Salvador. I almost could, except for the children, the poor, bruised victims of this insanity. Who would care for them? Whose heart could be so staunch as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of their tears and loneliness? Not mine, dear friend, not mine.”

I love that the very building I'm sleeping in is a chilly, creaking old hymn to the love of God as expressed in the life of one of his servants. I love that sacrifice is part of the culture here. I love the friars, lay workers, sisters, priests and volunteers that live here for sharing these jewels of the faith with me. I love you, my people, so you'll forgive me if I can't help but share them with you.

Lent: Week Five

2011-04-06T14:35:00.002-04:00

“To keep united to God through the suffering humanity of his Son–-that is the aim of Lent. “ -Dorothy Day

In his last dying words, Jesus quoted a previous King of Isreal who prayed:

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!
For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

The work of Christ's suffering for our sake continues today as his Body is beaten, killed and persecuted throughout the world.

Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution | Video on TED.com

2011-03-29T10:53:00.001-04:00

Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution | Video on TED.com

Lent: Week Three

2011-03-24T10:13:00.003-04:00

As we make our way towards the death of Jesus, and then afterwards to his resurrection, we reflect on his suffering as more than man's inhumanity to the Son of Man, but as God's suffering our oppression, and his identification with the oppressed. Jürgen Moltmann guides us to an understanding of the cross from the point of view of the downtrodden:

Why and in what way did the suffering, crucified God become the God of the poor and abandoned?

In Europe, Christmas and Easter are the high points of the church year, in custom and folklore and popular piety. This is not so in Latin America. The Christian 'feasts of life and hope' mean nothing to Indians and Mestizos. Their feast is Holy Week. The suffering and death of Jesus, the pain and mourning is something in which they can share. There they are at home. That is their life. The submission to fate and ability to suffer of the original inhabitants of Latin America has long been assisted by particular devotional forms. These include the stations of the cross, intercessory processions around representations of the fourteen biblical and legendary stations of Jesus during his passion.

Here, of course, the dominant church has from earliest times so formulated the texts of the stations of the cross that the believers are made aware only of the pains caused to Christ by their individual sins and their private immorality. But the poor no doubt recognized all their suffering in the crucified Christ: what they suffered from society and what they suffered from their fate.

Similarly, the piety of the Negro spirituals sung by black slaves in the southern states of the USA concentrates upon the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. For them his sufferings and death were a symbol of their own sufferings, their despised condition and their temptations in an unfriendly and inhuman world. They saw their fate in his sufferings. On the other hand, they could say that when Jesus was nailed to the cross and the Roman soldiers stabbed him in the side, he was not alone. The black slaves suffered with him and died with him.

"Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?" begins one of their songs. And the answer is: "We, the black slaves, were there with him in his agony." They knew the agony of rejection and the pain of hanging from a tree...Because black slaves knew the significance of the pain and shame of Jesus' death on the cross, they found themselves by his side.

By his suffering and death, Jesus identified himself with those who were enslaved, and took their pain upon himself. And if he was not alone in his suffering, nor were they abandoned in their pains of slavery. Jesus was with them. And there too lay their hope of freedom, by virtue of his resurrection into the freedom of God. Jesus was their identity with God in a world which had taken all hope from them and destroyed their human identity until it was unrecognizable.

"What a wonderful God we have--the source of every mercy and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials."

These words from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians take on greater meaning to me when I see them printed next to a painting of a young black girl, her face streaming with tears, her head turned upward in appeal, under the visible strain of generations of persecution, murder and slavery. Her image and these words hang on the wall in our house as an icon of the suffering Christ.

2 Corinthians continues after this verse to say "So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us."

As Jesus has said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

Bread

2011-03-23T09:56:00.002-04:00

Food is power, produce it!
Waste is waste because we waste it.
Health is life and you can taste it.
Their feedin' us shit and they have laced it
Food is power and they abuse it; Can't be trusted
genetically modified, fertilized and dusted
harvested by migrant workers who's backs are busted, yet they can't afford to eat it
Food is power and we are being defeated
Food is power because we NEED to eat it

The source of our food has been lost in obscurity

It’s about control & ownership, we need food security!
Food is power and we must produce it.
Food is power and we can use it
to be independent, truly free, and juice it
Food is power & we must produce it
Growin lettuce & justice, beets & peace, Some collards & love,
May His kingdom come to these streets.
Give us this day our daily bread

and free us from the snares where we are normally fed.

Lent: Week Two

2011-03-17T12:55:00.002-04:00

As we continue our Lenten fast and reflection, as we consider the pain in this world and the Incarnation I want to share a few pieces from the pen of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"No man can look with undivided vision at God and at the world of reality so long as God and the world are torn asunder. Try as he may, he can only let his eyes wander distractedly from one to the other. But there is a place at which God and the cosmic reality are reconciled, a place at which God and man have become one. That and that alone is what enables man to set his eyes upon God and upon the world at the same time. This place does not lie somewhere out beyond reality in the realm of ideas. It lies in the midst of history as a divine miracle. It lies in Jesus Christ."

As Paul wrote 'He is the image of the invisible God.' -Colossians 1:15

With the incarnation making it possible to bring both the Glory of God and the pain of this world into our gaze, consider the depth of the incarnation. In one such reflection Bonhoeffer writes:

"Ecce homo!- Behold the God who has become man, the unfathomable mystery of the love of God for the world. God loves man. God loves the world. It is not an ideal man the He loves; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find abominable in man's opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, the real man, the real world, this is for God the ground for unfathomable love, and it is with this that He unites Himself utterly. God becomes man, real man. While we are trying to grow out beyond our manhood, to leave the man behind us, God becomes man and we we have to recognize that God wishes us men, too, to be real men. While we are distinguishing the pious from the ungodly, the good from the wicked, the noble from the mean, God makes no distinction at all in His love for the real man. He does not permit us to classify men and the world according to our own standards and to set ourselves up as judges over them. He leads us ad absurdum by Himself becoming a real man and a companion of sinners and thereby compelling us to become judges of God. God sides with the real man and with the real world against all their accusers. Together with men and with the world He comes before judges, so that the judges are now made the accused."

This week we stand with the hungry of this world, just as Jesus has always stood with them.

Dear Composters,

2011-03-15T17:22:00.002-04:00

Every year America throws away 96 billion pounds of food; 263 million pounds a day; 11 million pounds an hour; 3000 pounds a second. We live in a society of consumption and waste. Our community is determined to use less and produce more as an act of repentance and justice. What we are striving to do through our composting efforts is to help in the development of disciplines among our community that remember tomorrow and use/reuse every resource we can. We now know that natural resources are not infinite and that they are actually rapidly diminishing. This depletion of the earth’s resources directly, negatively and most severely affects the poor of the earth. Social injustice, which finds itself at the heart of our ecological mindfulness, is the manifestation of violence against the most complex being in all of creation, the human being. Many people in this world go without their basic needs and we as a community are learning compassion. Compassion is generally expressed when need is immediate and clear. (we share our meal, clothes or our house with one in need) We must also consider the needs and rights of future generations as well as the current needs of the earth today.

We know old habits are hard to break especially when we live in a culture that reinforces ecological sin but we must continue to walk out our faith in even the smallest of details. Your organic waste is a gift to our community and it's potential to produce food (which we believe is power). It is also an act of justice on your part. It is a small change but directly effects your relationship with the earth and the poor throughout our community. Thank you so much for your fragrant offerings.

With Gratitude,

The Lake House Composting Co-op

What a Week (Applied Theology)

2011-03-03T11:59:00.003-05:00

          I haven't even been back in the country one week yet and already I don't think I could possibly report about all that has gone on. I love Tampa and I always love coming home. There have been several guests staying at the house since I have been back, others stopping by to get rest or to do laundry and a mosaic of other exciting ministry initiatives blossoming all around us. Our life is fun, busy, hard, joyful and at times confusing. There just are no easy answers. Each moment we must live and decide how to act or react as though we live at the foot of Jesus' throne. Because we do. We act in front of Him in faith that we are, as best we understand, doing His will. This of course does not mean that we actually are doing his will. This is the challenge of applied theology. We all have lots of ideas about God, His kingdom, His will, and especially about right and wrong. But we must avoid the temptation to try to imagine every possible scenario and predetermine the 'right' response because we just can't. Not when you are living in this world. Its unimaginable. Its only here that these experiences can be conceived of, as they happen. Applied theology is existential in nature and we must work out these ideas and ideologies in concrete reality. We must act and do and build and respond, we must live. We spend ourselves on behalf of others and hold tight to the promise that our righteousness would go before us and God's grace and glory would have our back. But in a life where you are, in each moment, doing theology as you walk into hard relationships and messy reality it is dizzying. We never quite feel balanced. We live our lives trusting in each other as together we trust in Jesus and lean out into the pain, darkness, and the unknown. Often we are surprised by joy, we are always stretched and challenged, and occasionally we are dumbfounded and unsure of what we are supposed to do. There is a powerful reality being addressed by the cheesy christian WWJD bracelets "What would Jesus do" right now in this moment and situation. Apply your Christology. But you know it is even harder than that. We could ask that question about anyone and we often do. "What would Tyler Durden do?", "What would my dad say?", etc. But the reality of Jesus is not only that He was a teacher and a model but that He is alive and present as well. He is in the moment with us, working and moving, and we must, in every moment try to discern "what is Jesus doing?" now in this moment and situation. Apply your Christology.
          So last night is a good example, home church was over and everyone had left. It was about midnight when there was a knock at the door. It was a young guy that used to come around a lot but had left town for a good amount of time. Robby and Drew were the ones that were there to answer the door. Apparently this guy gave them a different name and asked to come in, he was obviously drunk and had a fairly menacing looking buddy with him who we had never met. They called me to come up front and I remembered him immediately. He was a very strange schizophrenic that I hadn't seen in a while. I remember him being very quiet and odd while sober and very wild and unpredictable when intoxicated. So he is at the door, drunk and high, and asking to come in. I told them it was late and that we were on our way to bed but that they could come in and sit down for a few minutes. They came in and this guy was just spouting one ridiculous thing after another. His friend seemed to get more and more bothered by him and more and more nervous about him doing this in our house with what was now four of us standing around (Will had showed up too). Then he looks at Will and says, "You remember when I robbed your house?" Of course we are all like "No.... we didn't know who robbed us." "Yeah when that back window got broken....y'all still mad at me about that?" It was unbelievable!!! His friend got real nervous and start getting up to leave and we just said "That was you? We didn't know that."
This is what I'm talking about. Adrenaline shot through my skull as I thought of a few other guys that I had confronted about breaking in our home (which they did another time so....whatever). If I am honest I immediately wanted to slam this dudes head into the wall and choke him out. I'm a work in progress and still learning the way of peace. I didn't and as all my anger and confusion started spiraling out of control in my head and I looked around at what seemed like a room full of confused housemates. I told him that it was about that time and that he should probably get going. He asked for prayer. So we all joined hands as the guest turned on a Lil John song on his cell phone and the lot of us gathered and prayed for these two men (with the most amazingly profane musical backdrop ever). God be with them, protect them, guide them. And I remember David praying after the break-in last year, "God forgive me that I care more about what was stolen than those who stole it" and i said goodbye.
          I am still in the thick of the question. I am replaying the event over and over in my head trying to see what God is doing here. What is the move that I am to make? I must look out for my housemates and guests and I must love neighbors, strangers and even enemies. I don't want him back at the house but I do hope to engage him at the conscious party or meal sites, or just when I see him around on the streets. These are just initial reactions but the truth is, it will come down to the moment. I will see him, maybe at my door and maybe on the block, and I must act, in front of the throne of God, in obedience to His will and kingdom. In every moment at every turn, whether in peace or trial, we must walk out our prayer for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Inter-Communal Dialogue -Take One

2011-02-13T10:42:00.000-05:00

Last night we gathered with friends that are following down this windy and joyous path of communal living. We discussed struggles, dreams, questions, and details. We realized we were different in places we assumed overlap and we overlapped in so many ways that we were all pleasantly surprised by. Food, gardening, kids, and HIV prevention were a few overlaps that seemed to emerge. Hospitality is the never-ending value to be wrestled with and explored and we spent a good amount of time sharing stories or the good, the bad, and the ugly. Advice was given and received. Questions were asked and answers were pondered.

It felt good and right to share our collective experience this way and I am excited about what fruit may come of this dialogue. May God breathe life into all that we do.

Please speak up!!!

2011-02-09T12:39:00.003-05:00

ACTION ALERT - Gov. Budgets Cuts ALL Homeless Funding and Programs

Governor's Scott's proposed budget cuts ALL $6 million in homeless funding! This includes:

$3,000,000 for Homeless Housing Assistance Grants

$2,031,354 in Challenge Grant

$ 345,729 in local homeless coalition staffing grants (Hillsborough gets $12,000)

Florida has at least 57,643 homeless people (2009 numbers). $6 million is roughly $104 per homeless person - a very small amount.

The budget also includes language that would repeal the authorizing legislation in section 420.622, F.S., for the State Office of Homelessness, the Council on Homelessness, Challenge Grant program, and Homeless Housing Assistance Grant program. If enacted, these homeless initiatives would end on July 1, 2011.

WHAT YOU CAN DO - TAKE ACTION NOW!!!!

Call the Governor's Office and ALL your State Representatives and Senators and let them know you oppose these cuts.

Let them know:

You care about your homeless neighbors and oppose these cuts - to the funding and repealing the programs
These cuts will hurt your community by eliminating services and new housing - critically needed to help get homeless families and individuals back on their feet
The $6 million equals a mere $104 per homeless person in our state
Share any story you have about someone being helped through these programs.

Share this email with your co-workers, friends and family, Face Book friends and other social media contacts, associates, memberships, volunteers and anyone you know cares about their homeless neighbors.

HOW TO CONTACT the Governor, Senators and Representatives

Governor Scott's Office - (850) 488-7146 (to send email, go to www.flgov.com, select contact Governor Scott, and then email Governor Scott.)

Know who your State Senator and Representative is but not how to contact them? Find their contact information in the 2011 Hillsborough County Legislative Delegation directory.

Don't know who your State Senator and Representative is?

To find out who your State Senator is and how to contact them, visit http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find and enter your address.

To find out who your State Representative is and how to contact them, visit http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/representatives.aspx, click on 'find your representative' and enter your address

Please call TODAY and let them know you do not support these cuts!!!

Bitter Sweet

2011-02-03T16:46:00.003-05:00

I just came from the city council public hearing at which the partial ban on panhandling was shot down. I would have thought I would have been excited but I feel very sad. I am sad because after 100 people that showed up to say their two cents worth, the council looked at each other and picked right back up where they had left off. Partial ban or full? By the way only two of the hundred who spoke said they were in support of this ban. The council Charmian Thomas Scott said that there were only two options, a partial or full ban. The option of just not legislating at this time wasn’t even on the table. Of course that was the outcome because it was shot down but the discouraging part was that all five of the councilmen that voted no, did so because they actually want a full ban. The only two people up there who voted with their consciences were Scott and Mulhern, both of whom voted yes trying to compromise. I disagree that a compromise is a permissible outcome and keep thinking to myself that the best our city council has is these compromisers. Scott said at one point that if he could just single out panhandlers and ban them he would but that he cant because his hands are tied (by the constitution by the way). It was one of those moments where you get really patriotic and thank God for a document that prohibits these fools from just doing whatever they want. Where are the leaders who can listen to their city AND make right decisions? Who can be lead by their constituents as well as moral authority and ethical convictions? I am so disappointed in our city council right now and pray that the upcoming elections would yield more people who actually are leaders that live out their convictions.

One last thought for Council Chairman Rev. Thomas Scott, there is this verse in Matthew that keeps ringing in my head. This is the only time Jesus ever described what judgement would look like and he said ‘I was hungry and you didn’t feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me something to drink, I was naked and you did not clothe me’ and in this same spirit I can hear him saying now ‘I was in need and asking for help and you compromised and legislated me out of the public eye, depart from me for I never knew you’

Matthew 25

Here is the first TBO article I saw after the hearing

An urgent call to stand up and be heard!

2011-02-02T15:38:00.000-05:00

Isn't there something right about living in a city where you can find a meal if you need it. Isn't it actually a good reflection on our city that we have such a huge homeless population here? Wouldn't the fact that the outcast and the hurting feel a little more safe, a little more cared for, and possibly even a little less hated in our city than others be a point of pride in Tampa. I can't tell you how many homeless friends have expressed that Tampa is a city where you don't have to go hungry. Don't we want to preserve this relationship with the poor? Aren't places like Ybor, where the rich and the poor actually share the same sidewalks, beautiful because of their economic and cultural diversity.

Our city has progressively gotten more hostile toward our neighbors in need as the economy has worsened and the numbers and visibility of those needing help has drastically increased. Laws and ordinances prohibiting panhandling are being discussed and passing in our city council. While they are being pressured by businesses and the wealthy in our community they are still in a position to make decisions on what is right and just and fair. They are elected into office and are kept there by making decisions that the city (their district) will support. Sadly the poor and homeless are in many cases not voters, whether felons or just disaffiliated, their voice and their cause is not being heard. There is an urgent need for voting citizens to stand up and be heard. To advocate for our friends and neighbors who are going with out and sustain themselves off the generosity of others. Please come to the public hearing that is being held tomorrow at 9am at 315 E Kennedy Blvd. on the 3rd floor. Each person will be given 2-3 minutes to speak to the council and be heard. We need to let our city officials know that we are not in support of this law and that if further actions or ordinances are passed to the detriment and relegation of the poor in our city we will be forced to pull our support and campaign against these leaders that are working against the most needy in our community.

This ordinance is directly addressing the panhandling population and legislating their right to ask for help under the issue of public safety. Of course our city has addressed public safety issues and passed ordinances regarding the caution vests, daylight hours, and age requirement to be on the streets. There is also no data that has been presented that demonstrates a public safety problem. This is an issue of living in a society that is uncomfortable with, and hostile toward the needy. They are despised and rejected. Take a few minutes to talk with someone who panhandles and they will tell you about the terrible things our neighbors scream out their windows at them. They are not out there because it is easy or preferable to work. They are not lazy or dangerous. They are needy people. They are fathers, brothers, mothers, and friends. They are people and they have a right to make their needs known and this is protected by our first amendment right. Of course our clever city council is only addressing transactions between vehicles and pedestrians on our city's main arterial roads. While this is a step in the wrong direction it is not, as our mayor and some councilmen hope for, a complete ban. It is however directly effecting 500-600 jobs because the newspapers can't be sold on the corners, directly displacing the poor from the most visible places in our city, and catering to our least conscious and concerned neighbors. I want and cherish the opportunity to give a sandwich or a dollar to a neighbor in need. Don't you?

Plus our city is cutting cost all over the place and has limited resources for the police force and cannot really afford to enforce these laws. If a corner has no accidents then we don't spend money on a traffic light and this same principle should be called upon here.
These leaders must be accountable for how they are using our money as well as how they are considering ALL of our community members.

Please come and make your voice heard. Invite your peoples.

"...if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet
and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them
...his blood I will require from the watchman's hand.'" -Is 33:6

I love you all and hope you will join me tomorrow morning,

The Foreshadow of A Meaningful Journey

2011-01-31T23:46:00.002-05:00

There was something fitting about fasting while spending the very first 4 hours of my Underground internship at the HUB today. I sat in the cafe, observed the lounge, reclined at my desk in a dimly lit, yet slightly cozy room and pounded away on the keys as I mapped out goals and dreamed of what could be in regards to the Well. Something in me came alive. Something in me was awakened. I rarely feel like I am where I'm supposed to be, but it is a glorious thing when I do, and today I had that feeling. I'm sure it won't always be like that, but today seemed like a sweet kiss from God as if to say "Yes, Ryan. You made the right decision. Well done. You're on the right track." And then I hurried off to Big Brother Big Sisters where I conducted my first interview with a volunteer. My supervisor observed me and gave me great feedback afterward. I was very encouraged and I felt like, "Man, I can actually do this!" Then I was anxious the rest of the day because files continued to pile up on my desk faster than I could I knock them out. I feel like I'm behind, but i know I'm not. This is just the nature of social service: ample work and not enough staff. What should be a week long process to enroll volunteers is really a 3-5 month process. As the day came to a close, I worked a little extra but resisted the temptation to spend the night at the office. Instead, I came home and went for a nice, long run along Bayshore with Skippy. I feel as is my life is starting to take off, so to speak. I feel as if God is putting his foot on the gas and answering my longing to make every moment significant. He has already given me the opportunity. It's just a matter of seizing it. Often I hesitate. But he is good and patient and always keeps his hand extended, and the knowledge of that humbles me. I'm grateful for him. I'm grateful that he gives lowly man, who is of the earth, the opportunity to live meaningful lives before him, to do something that counts in the end.

Reflection On My Time In Tampa, by Lucas Pulley

2011-01-29T20:43:00.004-05:00

It’s honestly a daunting task to even begin to reflect on such a life-altering experience as my days at the Lake House, living in Ybor City and experiencing The Underground. I’ve put off this reflection for almost two weeks now, strictly because every time I sit at my computer I don’t even know what to type. I want my words to justly describe the joy I discovered there in such a short time, and the deepening of my relationship with Jesus due to a better taste of the Kingdom, and I’m afraid words just can’t do justice. You may as well be asking me what my first drink of water was like after spending the last 22 years of my life in the desert.

For the prospective member of our house

2011-01-29T13:36:00.003-05:00

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

(in no particular order)

You will be challenged:
‐We try to use as little as we can, including space, materials, money, fuel, etc. We don’t have cable TV, we look for less wasteful methods of transportation, we avoid using central A/C and heating, and we share our rooms and possessions with each other.
‐We take an active interest in each other’s lives, supporting each other in all that we do, and holding each other accountable to the values we have chosen to live by.
‐We live closely with each other so that we have to learn to deal with our differences of opinion, taste and personality without becoming destructive to each other.
‐We chose to live in a low‐income, high‐crime neighborhood. Our love for our neighbors will be tested when they steal from us, threaten us, attack us, antagonize us or frustrate us.
‐We look to God to lead us and guide us. He knows, better than we do, the desires of our hearts and the idols that we set up in that place; and His will challenges our own will, sometimes fiercely.

You will be bothered:
‐People knock on our door or call us, needing something. They may be hungry, or they may need to take a shower or wash their clothes. They may need someone to listen patiently to their story or their problem or their good news. They may need a ride. This and more is part of what we do and why we are here, and we are learning to do it with love and respect for our neighbors, each of whom bears the image of our God.
‐The way that you think things should be done may not happen. Part of this involves openness to new ways of doing things. Part of this involves working with people who may not be reasonable according to your standards. Part of this involves the destruction of your own expectations and of the agendas that you put onto other people as conditions for helping them. All of this points towards our ultimate and immanent reliance on the grace of God.
‐We all have different standards of cleanliness, organization, discipline, and order. Some of us will annoy others by our messiness. Some of us will annoy others by our demanding. All of us have some good and healthy disciplines to share with the rest. All of us will need to be gracious and kind to each other in our weakness. Be an example, not a critic.
‐Our house is old, our materials are what we can find or forage, and our willingness to simply purchase what we would like is crucified daily. Sirens, yelling neighbors, enhanced car stereos and the police helicopter are what lull us to sleep at night.

You will be counted upon:
‐Our lifestyle is characterized by a high degree of teamwork and shared responsibility. We come home depending on one another to have dinner prepared or the house cleaned or the animals fed. We share out possessions with each other and treat them better than if they were our own. We support each other in our trials. We don’t carry our own weight; we carry each other. And this is just the warm‐up for others who will need us (God, really, but we’re the best they’ve got) in desperate moments, in conflict, in pain, in need and in doubt.
‐We throw ourselves into the fray with abandon. Sometimes, we get in over our heads. When that happens, the rest of us are there to pass the baton and keep going. Any one of us would almost certainly burn out, but the lot of us can press on and heal each other in turns. Banish now from your mind the words “That’s not my job.”

You will be hurt:
‐Our joys come in quiet moments, but more often than not, they come in the midst of pain. Our experience of this lifestyle cannot be measured in pros or cons, good times vs. bad times; because our best moments may be the ones when we’re spent, or rejected, or taken advantage of, or we just can’t do it anymore. We are learning slowly to rejoice in pain. Please don’t be discouraged when things get difficult, rather mine that rocky terrain for the gold that is hidden among the rough. We’ll do this together.

You will be amazed:
‐God is bigger and wiser and more patient and more loving than we know. Time and time again we forget and remember that He is with us, and it’s the coolest thing in this world. Have eyes to see the blessings and mercies shown to us, and you will find more to be grateful for than you could have guessed.

If you haven't been scared off yet, this is for you.

Dear composters of the Lake House Co-op

2011-01-26T13:35:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to thank you for collecting your compostable scraps. Already all of you have increased in the amount we have picked up each week and we are grateful. I want you to know that this practice is great for our community and we are improving the way that we steward what we have by finding ways to reuse our waste. There are so many nutrients in the food scraps that you have given that would have otherwise been thrown into an inferno and turned to ash and maybe produced a small amount of energy. This way these nutrients are staying in our neighborhood and revitalizing the earth that we live on. I really believe that this is part of the reconciling work of Jesus. He restored our relationship with the Father, with each other , and with the earth itself. This is another way that God is calling us to love our community and see his kingdom coming.
Read more »

Intentional Community: Revisiting a Tribal Mentality in Tampa

2011-01-19T13:22:00.001-05:00

By: Charlene Scott

Introduction

The American dream is alive and well in Tampa, Florida. Complete with yachts, white picket fences, and indoor pools, a large percentage of the population live in luxury unknown to the rest of the city's residents. Among the upper/middle class Americans with wealth and families who will likely never lack any material possession or influential connection, there are some whose children have chosen another direction for themselves. Accepting a “counterculture” approach as their new way of life, my communal living informants, Brian S., Jon D., and Ryan I. risk the marginalization that comes from siding with the poor, prostitutes, and inner-city minorities (Schulterbrandt & Nichols, 1972). These stigmatized populations are now their friends and neighbors as a result of intentional communities they helped create and live in, scattered throughout the poorest Tampa districts.

Communal living provides a viable alternative to the traditional American single-family housing structure offering practical access to sustainable living, community involvement, and pooled resources, while not necessarily undermining traditional family roles with its unusual logistics. In order to better understand this alternative way of living, I visited community gatherings, talked with members and non-members, participated in community activities, and observed casual interactions between community members and their neighbors.

If you ask me about the lake house. By Tomas

2011-01-16T21:10:00.000-05:00

If someone were to ask me what the lake house was i would say it the closest thing to nature in the inner city of tampa bay. I would also say they are closer to the lord then most people i know. If you where to ask me how i found the lake house, i would say they found me as i was sitting on a bench in ybor. If you where to ask me what they do, i would say they are a house of hospitality for the poor and the travelers. Some of them have traveled too. If you where to ask me how they live, i would say they live for the lord, in nature, in the poor, and in the broken. We are all broken in one way or another. They try to grow and raise their own food in the inner city. They make there mistakes, they learn from them and they say "this is the lake house, we always do things wrong the first time." They are the most loving, caring, and god fearing people i know. They try there best to walk with jesus...
though they need to walk with bare feet! lol
-Tomas

A Hoedown In the Hood-- Holding onto Hope With Both Hands

2011-01-15T21:29:00.002-05:00

A leap of faith-- against all odds, we commit our lives to Him and to each other.

When true love manifests its beauty is breathtaking.

When we give our lives to God, He fills it with joyous celebration. He restores relationships.

On January 15th 2011, Benji and Angie became "Banjie" Jarrell. From the very first time I prayed with Angie to the evening they exchanged vows in the Romero Garden, their relationship has brought forth images of a garden. I cannot wait to see the fruit that God grows from this union.

May their family be blessed by God forever and ever, Congrats and AMEN!

Location: Lakehouse Backyard

Photographers: PJ Accetturro & Drew Coffman

2011-01-13T16:04:00.002-05:00

Thirteen days into two-thousand eleven and already we have had a bullet lodged in a truck tool box, two break-ins into our back yard, a car stolen, the neighbors house robbed, friends fighting and breaking relationship, the largest turn out at a conscious party ever, a house being purchased, a plague that has gotten at least half of us so far, and in two more days we will celebrate the first lake house/church wedding in our yard!
I can’t help but remember all the times that I cried out to Jesus just one powerful word, “more.” 2011 so far seems like an amplification of every aspect of our lifestyle. More veggies, more visitors, more conflict, more laughter, more trials, more discussion, more parties, more people at homechurch, more dirty dishes, more projects, more compost, more ministry, more late nights, more early mornings, more jesus, more dependence, more of the kingdom coming. I am tired and eager. Excited and frightened.

An Ybor 2011

2011-01-03T15:00:00.004-05:00

It was New Years 2011 and it began as a year that is promised to bring significant change to the lives of of many of us. We come into this year with hope and fear, knowing the love of God and our call to share it, as well as what that may mean for us. It will mean change, submission and responding to a call. Each morning we wake knowing this, knowing that we awake to attempt to move closer to God, closer to Jesus. We awake to die.

We try dieing to ourselves. It sounds easy, death often comes quickly, but not this kind. This death to self, and life for another, this is hard. It bears burdens and trials. We are tested by flames and pushed past our patience. We have moments, desire to flee from this life back to the comforts we once knew, the ones we once sacrificed. Can we pick them up again? Do we really want to or is it just a momentary weakness?

We go into another year of living a life of sacrifice, knowing that these struggles will only gather as we plunge farther into a life of Christ; and we are excited. There is already so much planned, and knowing us those plans will change. There are already three weddings involving us, our community, and it is day three of 2011. There are planned moves and new initiatives in the works. Talks of furthering education, leaving of jobs, going full time into ministry. Men are talking about joining our mess of an adventure and living with us in community. They bring ideas. We have set out to further our efforts in self-sustainability by planning an incredible ecosystem in our front yard. We talk about engineering a way to fit more people in our humble house so we can invite more into our community. We talk about how we can be more involved with our surrounding community and push others to join our efforts and pick up the passions we have accumulated along the way. We translate our love of Jesus into a language that not many hear in Western Christianity. It involves loving of neighbors as well as loving compost heaps in our front yard (and in our frustration we can look at them as the same). This language that baffles me calls to a life that considers the way we impact the lives of our brothers and sisters, as well as the way we impact the very earth we stand upon. It is a rich language.

So as we set upon this quest and christen this adventure of 2011 I have to ask myself if I am up for it? I have to look at myself and wonder if I will make it. This past year was both difficult and amazing. I have suffered much and yet have never known such joy. There will be difficult conversations and pivotal decisions all of which promise to be life changing and all of which will contain elements of pain and joy. I am beginning to think that one does not come without the other. The only comforts that come with this knowledge are these: that I have Jesus, and I have my community. Without either, I know I could not survive.

And so we set sail, and what better way to christen the New Year than with that which is fitting of our neighborhood. There are no champagne bottles to break, but bullets to fall, and so with this bullet that has fallen into the toolbox of my truck I take it as a push out into the unpredictable year of 2011.

Year End Review

2010-12-31T13:28:00.000-05:00

Most of us at the house make a point to set goals for ourselves each semester and review them at its close. In ministry, in a life like we live, there are so few ways to quantify results and really get a look a how you are doing. I just finished reviewing my goals for the fall semester and am pleased with the work that I have done but am more impressed with the feeling of joy I got as I just reflected on this last year. God has been so faithful to our community and we have done and seen more in this last year than most will in a lifetime. I always say, and really believe, that we have front row seats to life. As I reviewed the year I realize the inaccuracy of that, we have a good view because we are players, on the stage, practitioners, missionaries.
The year kicked off with our dear friend dennis driving into the back of a semi truck! Crazy old man won't stop for nothing though and never missed a step with the kids he has given his life to. Next, the Conscious slumber party. It was freezing out so our conscious party became a lock in. It was beautiful. Will & I and 30 homeless friends crashing on the floor together. In February I remember matt trying to 'showcase' stupid 'christian' books as our book of the month and being overly concerned that someone might take it seriously. Robby was busy in the other room building a bookshelf with a secret passage to what is now mommas room. March was crazy, There was a hostage situation a couple doors down from us and tactical units all over our street, We installed a garden at the good Samaritan inn for a drizly, cold, yet productive house day. We met tomas that month too and our homechurch finished the Gospel of John together. Oh and steve got an apartment! April was marked by a wave of confession as our community started to take seriously the role and power of this discipline among ourselves. A neighborhood addict, with whom we had been good friends broke into my car, was caught red handed, and asked,'can i keep the cd's?'. Gio and will had moved out and Chris and Ryan moved in, a tree fell on and crushed our neighbors house, and I spoke at underground for the first time in a long time about my experience of what is often called a dark night of the soul. We all prayed for and helped move in the girls who are staying in the telford house with hopes that we could be brothers and partners to these amazing women. David set a new bar for vulnerability and called us all into a deeper commitment to each other, sekajipo dropped his long awaited album, and tomas took brian and I to school us on the streets for a few nights. We mourned the closing of gullys, our beloved scratch and dent store, and we have been collecting and passing out blankets as the weather dropped. We started projects in the yard, build with salvaged material, have taken on the winter without using the heater, Chris has married and left us (for an admittedly better looking roommate), we celebrated mommas 62nd birthday together, another Christmas, 12 more conscious parties, 12 awesome community days, a very successful home church year,Halloween block party, thanksgiving dinner at the house, Christmas breakfast and at least 150 hours of house meeting time together. We also just saw Walter leave our place and move into a home for veterans where he will finally get the care he deserves. We have seen lives changed for better and worse, we have seen each other grow, fall, rebel, repent, and try. We are still slobs that don't wash our dishes, sinners that suck at life, and powerful agents of change because we are in the hands of God and at least trying to create a culture that is actually submitted to Jesus. Tonight, as we all gather to celebrate this year and look forward to the next may we smile and know that God has been good to us.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Christmas Time

2010-12-27T12:04:00.000-05:00

Above are some of the gifts I made for Christmas gifts this year. Luffah, basil pesto, mint jelly, aloe juice, and vinegar veggies,all with ingredients from our gardens. It really was a great experience for me to feel the freedom (and ability) to make gifts for my family instead of fighting the annual battle with what i always perceive as obligatory materialism and consumption. I really enjoyed Christmas this year and had a great time with my family, Natalia's family, and our community.
Speaking of homemade gifts, David gave me my very own framed death certificate!
Time of death- Any given moment
Body removal service- 1.800.GOT.JUNK
Place of death- ironically close to the hospital.
It was legit looking. Notarized and everything. I love it.

There was also a small (probably a first annual) breakfast at our house on christmas morning for those who had nowhere else to go. I wasn't there but heard from those that where that it was a great time.

I am really glad to be part of a community that always practices hospitality and generosity. I'm glad to be with people that always hold the incarnation as a central reality and model for living. I am thankful for living in a place that is always available to those with nowhere to go. Its a place where 'christmas' seems ordinary and that is special to me. Thank you lake house for making the holidays ordinary. I love you all.

Momma's birthday

2010-12-22T20:31:00.000-05:00

momma hates crowds but loves movies. Tonight was her 62nd birthday and there is quite a crowd of people that love momma. She has been so much to so many of us that people just kept coming by all night. as her movie collection grew so did her smile and her ability to handle the crowd. We often hit a threshold with her. I haven't figured out the exact number but I know when we hit it because she always vanishes. Tonight she got into one conversation after another and really seemed to be enjoying everybody. I really love her and the community that loves her as well. We got her her very own mini dvd player and she just hugged it and jumped up and down and said it made her cold go away. It was awesome. Thanks to everybody who came by to make this night special for her.
I am so grateful for her having shared another year of her life with us and am looking forward to many more.
momma, we love you!!!!

House Day - December 2010

2010-12-19T19:39:00.001-05:00

We built, we burned, we bantered.

Smores, Twisty Ties, Dumpsters & Reflection

2010-12-15T08:41:00.005-05:00

I remember a time when I waited five days each week for the weekend. I recall a time when couldn't perceive Monday through Friday as a time of joy; rather, it was the routine, monotonous interim between brief periods of fun and excitement in my life. In short, I remember a time when I spent most of my days waiting to live. And then I moved into the Lake House.

Twelve hours ago I was already knee deep in Monday evening. The night's responsibility to prepare dinner was mine, and I was entering the house two hours late due to a last minute appointment at work. I didn't want to let down my family of nine, but I was forced to prioritize a distressed client with a tight schedule, so I rested on my confidence that my community would understand the decision to serve others before ourselves. As I walked through the kitchen door, I found some of them sitting around with bowls of cereal and silent looks of desperation written across their faces. So... I got busy. I was moments away from shelling out $40 at Boston Market when Natalia, who knew my usual cooking partner was no longer available due to a phenomena called "marriage," instantly halted me and volunteered to help me cook. In her usual resourceful way, she scrounged up a bit of this and that until we ended up with a melting pot of various pasta shapes, sausage cuts, homemade sauce and twisty ties that I had forgotten to remove from the bundles of noodles. It was surprisingly tasty.

Before long, Jimmy, the tall, handsome Puerto Rican of our community, waltzed in ready to hit the weights as we normally do on Monday nights. Instead, due to the temperature outside (and inside the Lake House) we discovered ourselves huddled around the living room fireplace with other members of our community, cooking smores, fighting to stay warm and wondering when we might pass out from carbon monoxide. As people dwindled in and out the room, the conversation plunged a bit deeper until Jimmy and I were discussing our recent desire to rededicate ourselves to God. It had begun just yesterday during church when Brian, the director of the Underground, reviewed the impact that Jesus has had on the world over the last 2,000 years. Because of Christ's influence we have hospitals, universities and calendars. We have the very concept of hope and equality of the human race, which had not previously existed in ancient thought. With this in mind, Jimmy and I agreed that our lives would be a tragic waste if in the end we look back and realize that we did not turn the world upside-down. After all, we know personally the most powerful figure in the history of the universe, and we live presently in an age with such great need and injustice. Why shouldn't our lives serve as the conduit for Jesus' radical touch and transformation? How is it possible that our lives might become anything else? And why aren't our lives having that sort of impact right now?

As Jimmy and I were dwelling on the need for deeper devotion to God, Jon and David were in the next room hammering out some house documents for our ongoing communal formation. After they were finished, Jon was soon recruiting folks to accompany him on his journey to Home Depot where he would scavenge blocks of cement from dumpsters. Our house values simplicity and ecological sustainability, therefore we are always striving to do spend less and reuse resources out of concern for our neighbors and the environment. These chunks of cement, which were Home Depot's trash, would become the treasured foundation of our new shed. As everyone piled into Jon's truck and sped off, Jimmy and I stayed behind in order to wrap up our time together with an activity that each of us secretly wanted: prayer. We sat in my room and thanked Jesus for our new found inspiration to know and follow him, and we begged him to help us in this endeavor because we both knew all too well how prone we were to waning.

Jimmy left soon after while the rest of the house returned in time to find the fire dwindling and the room being invaded by frigid air. At this point, most of us would love to turn on the heater except that our electricity comes from a plant that uses coal which in turn pollutes and pains the communities from which it's mined. As opposed to being the covert partakers of an undue system that hurts people and the environment, we lit the fire once more and piled into the living room with our sleeping bags to enjoy injustice-free heat and a good night's rest.

I was half asleep when the doorbell rang at 1:00 AM, as it sometimes does at the Lake House. As Andrew answered the door, I could hear the rattled voice of a young woman explaining how she was nearly stabbed across the street. I will admit that as I lay there I couldn't help but think "Agh... I just wanna sleep. Do I really have to tend to someone else? When does it stop?" But in a flash i remembered what my oath to Jesus entailed, and that this was part of it. There was no way I could ignore her tonight and then say I love God tomorrow. So... I crawled out of the couch and followed Philip into the kitchen. As I introduced myself I noticed the tattoo that spanned both of her hands: "Don't Hate." How appopriate. As Philip slipped into his room to put on something warm, Andrew calmed her down and answered some of her questions, explaining who we were, what we were all about, and why we were all in our PJs together sleeping the living room... before long Drew and Phil had taken her home, and the night was finally over...

There is never a dull moment at our house. There are always ideas being born, projects being started, people dropping in and dishes being dirtied. I used to wait to live. Now, I'm more alive than I've ever been.

"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." -Matthew 16:25

Peter Maurin’s Personalist Gift to the Catholic Worker

2010-12-13T13:29:00.004-05:00

by Carolyn Griffeth
reposted from Jesus Radicals

Central to Catholic Worker lore is the story of Dorothy Day’s conversion from a life of socialist agitation to a life of Catholic piety, a conversion which both magnified her longing to join the struggle of the poor, and stymied the participation she once had in it. For four years following her conversion Dorothy was reluctant to participate in any form of social activism, a trend she parted with in 1932 when she went to Washington, D. C. to cover the “hunger march”. Her heart was pierced by the countless ragged, hungry men gathered there. The next day at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Dorothy prayed ardently that “I might find something to do in the social order besides reporting conditions. I wanted to change them, not just report them, but I had lost faith in revolution, I wanted to love my enemy, whether capitalist or communist.” Were it not for this prayer, she later admitted, she would likely not have been so receptive to “the French peasant whose spirit and ideas [would] dominate the rest of [her] life,” who awaited upon her return home.
This French peasant, laborer, and itinerant scholar was Peter Maurin, who had immigrated to Canada in 1909, and then to the United States in search of his Christian vocation. This vocation eluded him throughout a decade of teaching and Catholic political activism in France, and then two more decades in the new world where he lived as a traveling laborer until World War One. This lifestyle created an in-road into a comfortable life as a French teacher. Like Dorothy, Peter had also experienced a radical conversion; at the age of fifty-three he walked away from the comfort he had struggled to gain in order to pursue a life of poverty, charity, and agitation, which four years later brought him to Dorothy’s door.
Not being one to talk of himself, Peter never revealed the details of his own inner-transformation, but rather when pressed by one interviewer explained dismissively that “a world in search of affluence and security had gone crazy, and I decided to be crazy in my own way.” One is left to speculate on just how Peter’s vocation was found. Peter is best known as an intellectual and as a synthesizer of the philosophy and wisdom of others. Being of such a nature, perhaps Peter’s conversion flowed naturally from the intellectual clarity and vision he arrived at after long studying the gospel, the lives of the saints, Catholic teaching, and the writings of a diverse group of philosophers and scholars. Peter formulated this clarity into a three-part program of action, a program that began with him, and through his graced encounter with Dorothy Day gave birth to the Catholic Worker Movement.
At the core of all Maurin’s thought lies the life and teachings of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount in particular: “Blessed are the poor . . .” For Maurin, poverty was essential to entering into the life of Jesus and embodying the message of salvation Jesus preached, as was nonviolence or the love of enemies. One became poor because Jesus gave everything, even his life, to serve humankind. Voluntary poverty and nonviolence also gave witness to the primacy of the spiritual and prophetically demonstrated the orientation society had taken towards materialism and violence. The rumpled, old and only suit Peter Maurin wore on the occasion he met Dorothy gave evidence to the life of poverty he had chosen. After the onset of the Catholic Worker Movement, Peter had ample opportunity to model non-violence as a way of dealing with conflict. Dorothy relayed one account in the September 1948 Catholic Worker: When two men at Easton farm fought over an egg to eat, Peter refused to eat eggs or milk the rest of the summer, so that other might have more.
Peter also took to heart the teaching of Mathew 25:31: to serve those in need is to serve Christ. As the second pillar of his program he recommended Christian hospices, in the tradition of the early and medieval Christians, where the Corporal Works of Mercy would be practiced at a personal sacrifice. In Dorothy’s words: “We were to reach the people by practicing the works of mercy, which meant feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, sheltering the harborless, and so on. We were to do this by being poor ourselves, giving everything we had; then others would give, too.” Peter did not hesitate to be the first to put his teachings into practice: “When a reader who had been sleeping in the subway came into the Catholic Worker office one day and disclosed her need (the apartment and the office were already full), Peter’s literal acceptance of ‘If thy brother needs food or drink, feed him, and if he needs shelter, shelter him’ meant that we rented a large apartment a block away which became the first House of Hospitality for women.” In the same spirit, Maurin would often stay overnight at Uncle Sam’s Hotel for forty cents a night, or simply sleep in the park because he had given his bed to someone in greater need.
Likewise, Peter paid great respect to the seven Spiritual Works of Mercy as described by the Catholic tradition: to admonish the sinner, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive all injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead. In particular, he embraced “instructing the ignorant” or “agitation” as his particular vocation, and sought to instruct Bishops and bums alike. One of his pedagogical techniques was reciting monologues that would continue uninterrupted until his point had been made and then listening to the fullness of his conversation partner’s ideas without interruption. Another technique of his, was to begin a conversation with one person in a crowded setting like Union Square but in a voice loud enough to attract others. In order to get profound ideas across to the common person, Peter wrote and recited Easy Essays, or pithy poems designed to get stuck in your head. With all these strategies it is no wonder John Woodlock of the Wall Street Journal wrote of Peter: “He can cram more truth into your cranium at high speed in a single hour than any ordinary person could do in a week.”
Nonetheless, one could argue that Peter’s pedagogy was a secondary factor in his success as an agitator; the greater factor was his unshakable belief that all individuals shared his interest in the big questions: What has gone wrong in contemporary society? And, how can society be recreated to better serve the common good and the flourishing of the human person? Moreover, he assumed that everyone was capable of grasping profound truths and willing to transform one’s life in conformity thereof. To this end, Peter proposed Round Table discussions as the first pillar of his three-part program. Round Tables were to compel the exchange of ideas across class divisions in order to understand the roots of social problems and thus forge radical answers.
Having found a disciple at last in Dorothy, Peter spent every day for the next four months, from three in the afternoon until eleven, following her around the house in order to give her a “Catholic education.” Respecting that Dorothy was a working, single mom, Peter would not only bring books, but also summaries of them, which he wrote as an act of service for those without the time to read the works he recommended. Peter’s summaries included a digest of Kropotkin’s Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1889), which concluded, from the study of peasant society, that the principals of cooperation and mutual aid, rather than competition, were the most natural tendencies of humankind. Other sources Peter eagerly brought to Dorothy’s attention were the English Distributists who decried the evils of industrialism and advocated a land and craft society, and the French Personalist, Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950), who emphasized the absolute value of each person, made in the image of God, as the proper philosophical foundation for society. In the words of Mounier, Peter described his own program as a personalist one, a “green revolution,” which begins with an awakened sense of vocation that compels one to take an active role in history.
Another source of inspiration which Maurin brought to Dorothy was the example of the saints. Peter said, “In the Catholic Worker we must try to have the voluntary poverty of St. Francis, the charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the intellectual approach of St. Dominic, the easy conversations about things that matter of St. Philip Neri, and the manual labor of St. Benedict.”
“Peter loved St. Benedict,” wrote Dorothy, “because he said that what the workers needed most was a philosophy of work.” This philosophy flows out of the Benedictine motto: Laboreare et Orare—Labor and Pray—which emphasized an ideal unity between work and prayer, religious life and economic life. In his own life, Peter had seen the degrading effects of capitalism and communism, both materialistic economic models that emphasize wealth and production rather than the wholeness of the human person or the flourishing of human relationships within society. As an alternative, Peter proposed Christian communalism, believing that the development of one’s interior life was best fostered by a spiritually-centered communal life emphasizing poverty over affluence, self-giving over self-advancement, and cooperation over competition.
Peter cited Benedictine monasticism with its emphasis on hospitality, prayer, life on the land, art, and labor, as just such a model which could transform not only the person but also the wider culture. From his studies of monasticism, Peter also acquired the idea that human goodness can be fostered by appropriate structures. Therefore, Peter would formulate a daily schedule with set times for prayer, work in the fields, meals, rest, crafts, study, etc., for himself and whoever cared to follow. It was these small structures as well as the practice of the works of mercy, and the return to a village-like land and craft based culture, which fleshed out Peter’s idea of a “society where it is easier to be good.” To this end, Peter proposed farming communes or “agronomic universities,” to reintroduce city dwellers to the spiritual richness and simplicity of life on the land as the third and final pillar of his program. On Peter’s farming communes, community members were to live not only in cooperation with one another, but also in cooperation with their animals, which were considered as community members, and with the land, which was to be farmed using the most earth-friendly methods available—all of which was akin to living in cooperation with God.
Nonetheless, it is St. Francis, not St. Benedict, to whom Peter Maurin has commonly been compared, and who was arguably his greatest source of inspiration. The radical conversion Peter underwent coincided with his reading a series of books and papal encyclicals on St. Francis. In one of his Easy Essays Peter summarized the way of St. Francis, which he sought to emulate:

Saint Francis desired that we should give up

superfluous possessions.

Saint Francis desired that we should work with our hands.

Saint Francis desired that we should offer

our services as a gift.

Saint Francis desired that we should ask other people for

help when work fails us.

Saint Francis desired that we should live as free as birds.

Saint Francis desired that we should go through life giving

thanks to God for God’s gifts.

Like St. Francis, Peter was described by Dorothy as possessing “a freedom and joyousness that come from a clear heart and soul.” This joy and freedom flowed from his adoption of Franciscan poverty and the clarity he possessed about his own vocation, which was, in the spirit of St. Francis, to preach the gospel at all times in both word and action. Peter’s method of “agitation”, employed to awaken the human intellect and to compel one towards conversion, as well as his three part program, were his attempt to bring the gospel to the common person and to the social realities of his time. In short, Peter sought not only to talk of salvation (one’s growth towards holiness, or the full realization of oneself moving towards God), but to make salvation more possible by creating a spiritually nourishing culture.
It is remarkable how precisely Dorothy’s prayer “to find something to do in the social order” for the poor was answered in Peter Maurin. “Without him,” Dorothy concluded, “I would never have been able to find a way of working that would have satisfied my conscience. Peter’s arrival changed everything, I finally found a purpose in my life and the teacher I needed.” In turn, Peter found in Dorothy the student he had searched for, one with the capacity and charisma to put his program into action. Because of Peter and Dorothy’s student-teacher relationship, Peter has commonly been understood as the intellectual founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Yet from the beginning, Dorothy sought that Peter would be known for more than just his ideas and even insisted that biographers writing about her write instead about Peter. In the end, Dorothy set out to write her own biography of Peter which, though unfinished, was recently published in Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World. Dorothy’s reflections within, make it clear that Peter was not only her teacher but also her spiritual mentor in whom she saw the “face of Christ.” Upon Peter’s death, Dorothy compared their time together to the time the disciples walked unknowingly with the risen Jesus, quoting Luke 24:32: “Was not our heart burning within us whilst he spoke along the way?”

'...to present her to himself as a radiant church'

2010-12-04T20:00:00.020-05:00

She had embraced singleness and was single mindedly committed to Jesus. I remember talking with friends over the years about this girl that no guy could get. We called her her the big fish, one buddy always joked that she was Rapunzel in the tower. She was beautiful and her commitment and dedication to God made her that much more beautiful.
Tonight she gave up singleness and vowed to pursue God with Chris. Singleness was truly a gift that she cherished. She was free to go wherever God called and whenever He called. She was free to pour her life out into community and ministry. As they exchange vows I can't help but stand in awe and reflect on the depth of this union. It is no small thing.

As we prayed for Chris as a community before the wedding I was overwhelmed with joy for them both. They are making vows and immediately setting their eyes on the Philippines. There marriage is, from day one, about the kingdom and Gods purposes in the world. I love them both and am so excited to see what God does with these two lives.

This blog marks the end of Chris's time in our house and the beginning of their life together. They will always be family to us.

We are so happy for you both.

Joann your life is an inspiration. Chris we will miss you.

grateful

2010-11-26T15:00:00.001-05:00

The holidays can be tough. Bad memories and good memories alike can stir ones heart to grief. For many, it is the time where it is most clear that they are alone and lonely. We opened our house to friends and a few strangers that had nowhere to go to celebrate thanksgiving and feasted. It was beautiful to see a 67 yr old vietnam vet sitting with a young punk rocker, a local black minister preaching to a white college student, to see one man who lives on the street serving everyone else while another fell asleep on the couch. What on earth are these people doing together? In what world do these people celebrate holidays together? I am a citizen of the world in which it happens all the time, a member of a communtiy that has embraced this counter culture, and a student of a master that has been growing us in his image each step of the way.

Ecological Consciousness

2010-11-19T15:49:00.000-05:00

Our concern for nature recognizes mans place within the environment. Mankind and the societies that we develop are as much a part of nature as the trees and rivers. Mankind however has demonstrated throughout time our capacity for standing as an antagonist in this relationship. We have historically imagined in building our modern society that natural resources were infinite and that the road to the future was paved with infinite development. As Leonardo Boff has pointed out, these two presuppositions have proven themselves to be illusionary. We now know that natural resources are not infinite and that they are actually rapidly diminishing. This depletion of the earths resources directly, negatively and most severely affects the poor of the earth. Social injustice, which finds itself at the heart of our ecological mindfulness, is the manifestation of a violence against the most complex being in all of creation, the human being. Ecology should be both environmental as well as social and advocate sustainable development that attends to the basic needs of human beings without sacrificing the earth’s resources. We must also consider the needs and rights of future generations as well as the current needs of the earth today.
Because the society that has been developed over recent centuries is all consuming, it values humans based on there consumption, makes indulgence our modus operandi, and also inhibits sustainability. There is a mental conversion needed in each individual for us to move toward sustainability. We have been brought up to consume and we also have within ourselves instincts of violence and a desire to dominate. In most cases our culture has only echoed these instinctual drives and in worst cases encouraged them. Many environmentalists disregard man as part of nature because we have set ourselves up as its enemy and sought to destroy and consume the earth. This is little more than a pendulum swing from our anthropocentric way of seeing the world to the opposite extreme. Mankind is as much a part of this world as any other element in nature. We must attend to the needs of man as well as other beings in nature such as plants, animals, or microorganisms, because they are all part of the delicate and valuable system of this planetary community. All beings are interdependent and live within an intricate web of relationships. Anthropocentric culture considers humans to be the rulers of the universe. We must repent of this idea, culture, and lifestyle. Jesus Christ is the only ruler of the universe and we are responsible for stewarding creation and are responsible for the deterioration of this planet and are paying dearly for our sins. It is imperative that we recapture an attitude of respect, adoration, and care for the Earth.

Revolution is here....

2010-11-01T16:50:00.000-04:00

THE ENTIRE DEBUT ALBUM BY SEKAJIPO AND THE JUNGLE, ¨REVOLUTION OF THE MIND-STATE¨, IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR A FULL LIVE STREAM ONLY AT ONLY AT WWW.REVERBNATION.COM/SEKAJIPOANDTHEJUNGLE

Freezing Jesus.... I was naked and you clothed me

2010-10-20T14:30:00.001-04:00

Brian's talk following our time on the street

2010-10-18T13:37:00.002-04:00

A brief Pilgrimage, a permanent impact.

2010-10-16T17:43:00.002-04:00

So my friend Brian and I took to the streets for a few nights led by our friend Tomas who has lived on the streets for years. He said that we would need to find our own squat to sleep. That was part of the experience and he was not gonna just tell us where would be safe or where he normally sleeps. The first day we met up with him in the middle of Ybor and he told us that we were unprepared and at least had to find some blankets. We went to a local ministry that works with homeless people and they gave us a couple. Not before they questioned us about being on the streets. (I am pretty sure she didn’t believe us but it was getting weird and she just gave them to us.) Tomas said we were far to clean to fit in but that we wouldn’t be for long. Since we knew that The Well has a meal they call The Banquet every Thursday in ybor we knew that we would be able to find some dinner that night so we put our minds and feet to finding a squat (a place to sleep). We found a few spots that seemed promising but at one we really liked I stepped in some poo and lets just say there was some paper nearby! Not dog do do! Not that we still thought this might be a good spot but as I cleaned up Tomas told us how important it is to bury your poop. We could think of several reasons that this might be a good idea but in the end his reasoning was that he wants God to be with him. What? Yup, Deuteronomy 23:13-14 says : “...when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you...” God doesn’t even hang around if theres crap there!! So on we went. WE ended up finding a nice spot behind a manicured section of the I-4 exit ramp. We stashed our blankets and stuff in the bushes and kept walking around the city. Below are a few reflections on the journey.

Pruning
As we walked he asked us what we would grab if we could get one thing from home. Shoes! i said emphatically. these are killing me. I already had blisters and we were only half a day into what I was learning was an itinerant life. Tomas granted my wish and we stopped by the lake house to swap shoes. The Lake House is normally great about helping guys on the streets but Natalia screamed at me as I came up to the house “Homeless people can’t just go home and get their other shoes!!” She was right and I still did get some better shoes. Then her hospitallity kicked in and she brought us all a drink on the porch and off we went. (By the way brians response was “hmm, that will probably keep changing, right now its headphones, tomorrow in would probably be socks and underwears, and after that who knows.” He is right the longer we were on the street the more basic our needs and desires became. All of our normal cravings and whims were silenced and a soda seemed indulgent. After the couple nights we spent outside his answer became clear. ‘A watch.’ I can’t tell you how slow time seemed to move and how clueless we were about when the sun might come up. THis morning we were wide awake just waiting for the sun to rise and he finally walked to a gas station to find out what time it was. When he got back he informed us that it was only 3:15 AM!! I wanted to cry. I was freezing, wet with dew, and just sore from laying on the ground.)

We just walked and walked and walked. We did stop and relax at a few parks along the way but if we wanted to eat we had to get ourselves to the next meal site, plus we got shooed when we stopped for one of us to tie his shoes. We literally spent the second day walking to get from lunch to dinner. We walked all the way to Brandon for dinner. The meals were great and what a relief it is to sit down with smiling faces and enjoy a meal after walking in the dust and heat and scorn of everybody all day long. As I stood in a line outside of the salvation army’s Trinity cafe for lunch I was struck by the general joy of people with real struggles and I couldn’t help but think about my middle class community and its tendency to complain about everything. Literally drive to a restaurant in an air conditioned car, sit down at a beautiful meal, in a beautiful place, with a beautiful person and complain. It really staggers the mind. “God forgive me for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” -Isaiah 6

Coffee and the Morning Paper
Both mornings we were up before the sun and itching to move again. (Even though our feet were in blatant disagreement) We each had a few dollars which was enough to get us a coffee and dollar burrito at McDonald's each morning. I am telling you I have never enjoyed being in a McDonalds more in my life. We sat in a booth, read the newspaper, drank coffee and just soaked in the Micky D’s goodness. On the front page was an article about tampa discussing the banning of panhandling. What a great situation to have this discussion. We talked about the ways that we felt about this possible ban and what that might mean for poeople, like tomas, who really need help from others. How can it be made illegal to ask for help? How could anyone without any access to money ever sit in a both at Mcdonalds, read the paper and discuss their lives together? How could rich people disgust and disregard for the poorest members of our society hide behind the guise of public saftey. There have not even been any reported accidents other than one newspaper salesman three years ago. This is strictly about the potential for an accident OR bigotry and distaste. I was pleased to hear that the debate has been shut down for now as Joseph Caetano failed to get a second, so his motion to ban panhandling died. I was relieved. Maybe we should each take a minute to call or write those that stood against the ban and thank them for doing what is right.

http://www.tampagov.net/dept_City_Council/about_us/ here is a link to write the members of City council.

By the way you may feel like this is a good debate and you are not sure which way you are leaning and thats ok. But these people are calling for an ‘immediate’ ban for public safety reasons without cause. Lets pray for them and their families and ask God to bless them, soften their hearts, and lead them to a place where they would feel the impact of their legislation.

Pam Iorio is calling to make the ban county wide instead of just in the city.
Charles ‘Chip’ Fletcher, who was named by Iorio as the City Attorney

The City Attorney's Office is located at:

Old City Hall, 5th Floor

315 E. Kennedy Blvd.

Tampa, FL 33602

Tel: (813) 274-8996

Fax: (813) 274-8809

Assistant Police Chief John Bennett

Faith
Tomas says it takes a lot of faith to live on the streets. Trusting God for safety, rest, food, etc. The presence of peace is, to him, Gods presence. Incidentally that is also why he is so adamant about burying poop. That presence is all you have and you do whatever it takes to keep Him with you. Faith is everything in such precarious places.

Feet
Jesus was always on the move, a tramp, and he called disciples that would leave everything and follow him. Many times we think how hard it is for people to leave everything. It is, but with these blisters on my feet after walking around tampa with Tomas I can’t help but imagine how hard it would have been to actually follow Jesus. TO get up and walk from town to town, seek out food and trust God for rest. When Jesus was leaving his disciples he said, if you love me you will do what I do. You will keep on walking. He promised that he would send a guide that would walk alongside them, and walking, being sent, movement, was implied.
Isaiah 52:7 says “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news”
Beautiful are the feet that are dirty, blistered, calloused, stinky, covered in ant bites, and still moving. They don’t stop because it hurts. They are on a mission and marching to the cadence of our Father.

Hilarity
Oh and when I found a bathroom at the park and it had no toilet paper Tomas asked me if I needed some 'shit tickets' as he offered me a stack of napkins. Then he warned that often times on the streets your body will use a lot more of what you take in causing your movements to be a little loose. Really? I asked. "Ya its called Tramp Splat" He smiled as I threw up in my mouth a little.

We are called to live and called to love

2010-10-13T11:26:00.003-04:00

For me, life is full of undulations of the heart, waves that oscillate up and down and I wear it all. Right now, I am inspired and ridiculously amazed at how we live and how we love. Not that we got it right but that we try. We are trying to do mission. It is becoming real to me.

It has been difficult for me to bear this burden of mission. i have wanted to run to comfort and run to solace. But, on Monday, I woke up differently. Everything was more beautiful. The air around me, the sky above, the trees outside, and the people, of course the people were the most beautiful of all. I saw love all around, people who have it and people who so desperately desire it whether they know it or not. A friend of mine has been going to the Good Sam feeding lately, and after this last time I felt I could feel how she wanted to love and see love, how the faces of the poor actually resonated with her. And the men and women at the good sam, I couldn't help but see Jesus in them all. The broken and downtrodden, and they were happier than I had been for months. And grateful for watery mashed potatoes, stale chicken patties and bread on the verge of being moldy. And they are so thankful.

God is moving among us and within us. He is pouring himself out all around us and calling us to do the same.

A friend of mine from high school has been on an 11 month mission trip all over the world called the world race. I have been keeping up with her blog (http://emilymilroy.theworldrace.org/) and I am inspired by her willingness to go in spite of fear, and the diligence with which she confronts all the challenges God places in front of her. She has open hands and she allows God to move within her and use her to move. We strive to do the same, we strive to move according to His will. I have been pushing against Him lately because it started to hurt. He started to ask too much of me. But he never stopped loving me in spite of my resistance. He never pulled away but waited patiently as I went through being a whiny brat about it all. And finally whene I turn and wake up to Him, He reaffirms me that it is all ok. It is ok because He can replace the crap i have filled my life with, it is ok because as He asks me to let go of one thing, he fills that emptiness within my soul.

I live in a house where two dogs damage everything, roaches can never be fully killed, we find mice in toilets and someone uses a pair of tongs to throw it across our neighbors yard. I live next to a liquor store with street walkers on the corner. I live in a house where 10 poorly equipped, naive, selfish at times, arrogant at others, decide to commune with one another, to build and equip one another, to put each other in their place when necessary and pick each other up when they have fallen. And we don't do it because we love one another. We do it because we love God, and He loved us first. When you experience that it becomes an overflow of the heart and you cant help but love the people your are around. As Emily said in her blog, we strive to live with hands open, that the overflow of the love within our hearts meet each other and everyone we come in contact with. That the chaos that is the Lake House may help a life come to know Jesus, and help each other to remind us that it is Jesus that is our focus, nothing else. I want to desperately listen to the voice of God, and I pray that if I never reach the point where I can listen, that the desire to listen will be enough. I pray that each of us continues to be intentional in the way we live. Our actions will never be meaningless, each of them reaches into the souls of those around us, and into our own whether we pay attention or not. I love and i strive to love abundantly. I pray that it never ceases. That as I look around, I see Jesus in everyone, the good bad and ugly. As this post is, my life is a jumbled mess of emotion, thoughts, desires and people. I would have it no other way and I pray that it is God that separates it all out and uses me for what he would have of me. I thank each and every one of you for being in my life, putting up with my crap, and loving me all the same. Mad props.

Seek God, he is waiting for you with open arms and he will teach you, refine you, burn away the crap of your lives. It may hurt at times, but in the end you will be the beautiful creation, made in His image, that he intended you to be.

Love you guys

Death of St. Scratch & Dent

2010-10-12T22:11:00.003-04:00

Dear Brethren,

May Gulley's rest in peace. It served us as loving and faithful companion for many years now. It allowed us to live a healthy and abundant life. Granola bars for 10 cents, tea boxes for a 25 cents, dented cans for 35 cents. They say you can't buy love, but the truth is, Gulley's sold love. It came in an expired and dented box in the spoiled milk isle.

We should place a picture of Gulley's on our wall. No other store has the ability to evoke so many fond memories (ex. Will eating a cup of maggot infested oatmeal. Me drinking a full cup of brown and rotted apple juice. Eating canned food that had a two year old expiration date).

Please respect Gulley's passing away.

Benji's Song

2010-10-10T11:20:00.002-04:00

The mess that we're in is as common as sin,

But we've never been quite satisfied

With our petty offenses, our own recompenses:

The guilt, and the secrets we've cried.

So we collaborate and we systemize hate

Into broad multinational schemes

That don't stop with the murder of one poor sheep herder,

But rend all the flock at the seams.

If our minds can't dismiss our Judas's kiss,

Then we'll hide it behind the bright mask

That we wear in the crowd, where the cheers are too loud

To admit our own role in the task.

What is murder for me is a triumph when we

Pin a flag or a ribbon to claim

The dark deed as a virtue. Don't blame me if it hurt you

To blot out your memory and name.

And if all of the men and their wives and descen-

-dents have fallen and bowed in their shame,

Then the earth will fall last--the die has been cast

and the ash will remember our name.

After pillaging kin, our own house will cave in

On our crimes, our excuses, our pride.

Only then will our lust to ground men into dust

Will be, with our death, satisfied.

We Have Our Moments

2010-10-06T11:19:00.000-04:00

Sometimes entropy can be observed by just looking at our community. Convictions wane, intentionality is stilled, & the aroma of apathy clings to everything. We become irritable, selfish, resentful, and unkind. The proximity that deepens our intamacy also amplifies our angst. We unknowingly retreat into the solace of isolation and deprive ourselves of the very cure. The past month seems to have been one such season.

Then, as though God had planned such a period for dramatic effect, He blows through the house like a rushing wind of intentionality, reconciliation, reflection, repentance, and restoration. Last night was one such night.

The night began as a cool evening at home with housemates, a few guests, wrestling matches and haircuts in the kitchen. It became a series of independently initiated & intentional conversations consisting of things like confession, repentance, reconciliation, personal challenges and convictions. I had the privilege of being either central to or at least included in almost a half dozen such conversations in one evening. (and in a strange way there was a common echo happening in them all) While it may sound like a tedious or stressful evening it is quite the contrary. Like a withered plant being watered, I felt restored and wanted to just bask in it. Nights like that remind us of why we live the way we do, correct the insidious ideas that have been eroding our clarity, and give us a taste of the communal life that beckons.

Gettin' Conscious!

2010-10-03T10:58:00.001-04:00

INVICTUS

2010-10-01T16:56:00.000-04:00

by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gait,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Rewritten by Dorothy Day
Out of the night that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be
For Christ the conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under that rule which men call chance
My head with joy is humbly bowed.
Beyond this place of sin and tears
That life with Him! And His the aid,
Despite the menace of the years,
Keeps, and shall keep me, unafraid.
I have no fear, though strait the gate,
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate,
Christ is the Captain of my soul.

יהוה אחד

2010-09-12T16:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning the eclectic collection of micro churches in the broader Tampa Bay area came together at the HUB (Huge Underground Building) to represent the love they have and the people they love. For some, that means African American girls, and for others, it's the local homeless, the self-deluded middle class, Haiti, Manila, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, the college students, the aged, the dying, or for us, it's the people who knock on our door. It was hard to answer the question of who we are or what we do. Do? We do stuff. And who we are is part of the Body: just one houseful of people trying to crack our door wide open to the neighborhood we love. It was good to see other pieces of the Kingdom, each with their own passion and calling, none of them encompassing the totality of the Gospel, each of them invaluable in their own expression of it. And we are one.

After the micro church showcase, we worked alongside our friends to move them into a new house where they have decided to enjoy the reality of christian community among women. It's good to have sisters. On Saturday at a wedding, I sat next to one of them, Lauren, and we watched the groom kneel down and wash the feet of the bride, who then knelt down to wash his feet in turn. I leaned over to her and said "This is why I love Christianity" and her smile nodded in agreement. We are blessed to love one another by serving each other as we would want to serve ourselves. We are excited to work with Lauren's girls, excited to see them flourish in service to each other. And we are one.

In the evening, after our normal house meeting, I took the liberty of testing the boundaries of christian community, of calling the bluff on unconditional love. It's a gamble that I've come to love losing, because each time I've packed my bags in preparation for rejection, for judgment or condemnation, each time I've expected these believers to act like 'those christians', I have seen their judgment suspended, giving way to mercy, seen their words quieted so they can listen. I see their spirituality, with all the doctrine, dogma and discipline that entails, swallowed up in the Spirit, Who is the same in each of us. And we are one.

Being Called To Something Greater...

2010-09-04T19:00:00.002-04:00

Today was a continuation of a process i've been going through for a lil while now, but more heavily in the last week. During a personal retreat this past weekend, I saw a foreign movie based on the true story of a young girl who was beheaded for her involvement in the german resistance against hitler... it really challenged me. it caused me to look carefully at my own life, my own goals, and ask whether or not i was living for something greater, something worth dieng for. more than that, it also challenged me to give myself TOTALLY to a cause worth dieing for; not just halfheartedly. her story left me feeling ashamed and inspired.... not wanting this sort of feeling to wane, i decided i needed to keep feeding whatever this was taking place in my heart, so i got hold of a couple movies about bonefhoeffer and watched those, and once again i was ashamed and ispired. altogether i'm looking at these people's lives and learning that their faith/relationship with God informed every aspect of their lives. there was no separation between their "religon" and their "politics," or there "religon" and their "social life," or their "religon" and their "economics." it was all one integrated whole for them.

it's funny... people like sophie scholl and dietrich bonehoffer were not popular in their day. they were just ordinary people who gave themselves fully to a higher cause. they were ordinary people who did not shrink back from death. really they were ordinary who just lived their lives totally surrendered to God, and that is what made them extraordinary. that is what made their names great and worth rembereing throughout history. and those who only served themselves, who cowardly gaurded their own intrests and did not speak up against the evils of their day for fear of their own lives or family, their memory has faded away....

i'm not necesarrily interested in being remembered, but i want to live a life worth remembering. I want to live a life that really matters. Deep in my heart i want to give myself TOTALLY to a greater cause, for the betterment of humankind. i don't want regrets. My greatest fear is to stand before God and hear him say "i love you, i love you, i love you, but you wasted your life." i want to hear him say "i love you, i love you, i love you, and well done my good and faithful servant."

but if i'm honest i hold back because i'm afraid of failing, getting down on myself, feeling hopelessly screwed up and incapable of following Jesus, and then being paralyzed by my fear and discouragement. that seems to have been the trend. and i feel like God is worthy of more respect than that. God deserves better than that. He deserves someone who won't be "in and out" all the time. However, i'm sick of holding back. I feel that restlessness of not living wholeheartedly for a greater cause. I live in the shadow of knowing that my life is not totally devoted to something greater and it haunts me. i cannot be here anymore. to do so is suicide.

this is just a snapshot of what's been going on in my heart and mind this week. may the lord be good to me, be patient, and bring it to completion.

When Jesus doesn't come

2010-08-19T11:12:00.003-04:00

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KEEP ON TRUCKIN'...and what exactly is success?

Make Kony Famous!

Tuning Our Lives to the Love of God

An Ironic Dialogue between Generosity & Simplicity

Conscious Party Performance by Sekajipo & The Jungle

An Enchanted Weekend with Sekajipo & The Jungle

Tampa Epoch Kickstarter Campaign

The Serenity Prayer

Jon sharing with TEDx Tampa Bay

The Tampa Epoch

Sekajipo Genes & The Jungle

Conscious Party 2012

2011- Year End Review

Lake House TED talk next Monday night

Lake House: Solar Initiative

Thanksgiving Tents

A Brief Reflection on Erica and Jon's Experience 'Surviving Tampa'

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

I was called to be a missionary, although I have been a bad one.

Home church 10/12/11

Criminalizing Poverty

Probably not kosher but whatevs

Remembering Francis

Congratulations, Will & Laura Barrett

Feed the hungry (somewhere else)

House Day: September 2011

The endless summer finally comes to an end

Summer has been rough.

What is Love?

The Power of Food: A walk through the yard

Solar Water Heater

A Letter Home

Blood, sweat and tears...Actually, mostly sweat.

Surviving Tampa

The "Drug Bust" Across the Street

From Ancient Rome to Modern Tampa: Empire, Occupation, and The Way of Jesus

Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative.

Underground Catering By Erica Santuccio

Its getting hot in here....

The Spiritual Discipline of Sweating

From the streets, to an apartment, to a Kingdom

The Changing of Seasons

Integration: How do you rejoin society? Thoughts after 30 day local food experiment

Day 28: A few more food thoughts

A Few Small Food Reflections after 26 days or Eating Local

Vote for DACCO

The Kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power.

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Lent: Week Three

Bread

Lent: Week Two

Dear Composters,

What a Week (Applied Theology)

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For the prospective member of our house

Dear composters of the Lake House Co-op

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Momma's birthday

House Day - December 2010

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Revolution is here....