Halloween

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

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



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

And the effect of righteousness will be peace...

This is a catechism adapted from the writings of Adin Ballou, whose work was used by Tolstoy in his The Kingdom of God Is Within You. It takes the form of question-and-answer to explain simply but thoroughly the idea that violence, accompanied by our well reasoned excuses for it, is strictly opposed by Jesus. The writings and example of those who question such a basic part of human civilization as violence serve as an unsettling challenge to us Braveheart and Gladiator fans.

Q: Where does the phrase "non-resistance" come from?
A: From the command, "Do not resist the one who is evil."

HOSPITALity

I was healed, cut, comforted, and visited.
When I was there, I was not feeling well and was tired from pain medication. The last thing I wanted to do was socialize and I wasn't much to talk to when others came. They came though. Lots of people. Mother, Father, sister, wife, Waton & Enslie, David. Will, Robbie, Patrick, Drew, Matt, Brian...
I felt like I needed to be hospitable.
I had nothing to offer. No energy to entertain. I could only receive. I became poor and got to encounter my community and family who love me as weak, poor, embarrassed, and humbled and I realized the strength and presence of God's love in them in a new and powerful way.

Be greatful & share

I was just in the hospital for a stomach ache. I went first to a walk-in doctor on a Saturday morning. I had had three days of stomach pains. On the second night i took laxatives and it flushed me out but the pain was still there. I felt embarrassed going to a doctor for a stomach ache at all. The doctor also acted like it was nothing. "Well, I'll test your blood, since you came in.." She comes back, "Your white count is kinda high. You should go to the ER." I thought to myself, "Sit in the Emergency room with a stomach ache? I'll never get in." So i went to the smallest hospital I could think about. Probably a good idea by the way.

I ended up having appendicitis and had my appendix removed.

This could be a deadly condition if it ruptures inside of you. Mine did and they washed me out.



Many in this world don't get these "inconvenient" doctors visits.... and they die. One of many preventable illnesses that kill 30,000 children every day. Some are more easily preventable....like starvation.

Commune

In the past month, my life decisions have become the life maze of God as He is pulling me from the comfort of white middles class America and calling me to truly care for the marginalized. Hence, I move to the Lake House.

Today I spoke with a pastor from my childhood, someone I greatly admire, about the decisions I have been making, most significantly my moving into the Lake House. Telling him with excitement in my eyes about the new house and opportunities, I described it as an intentional community. He fired back, in a half-hearted joking way, like a 'hippie commune' of the 70's. I was confused and startled. Wasn't this biblical? Are we not called to live with one another, each eat other's bread, weep in each others tears? I guess he saw the confusion on my face when he quickly changed his position to support (with reservations) the decision to live with a brother intentionally and confirmed the biblical nature of such communities. After much thought I realized that from the outside it could very well be seen as a commune, I mean what other kind of environment do crazy Jesus people pack as tightly into a house as they can. But as I am nervous walking into this lion's den of a house, I am overcome with excitement. I realize each moment I spend within the walls of this house, although this will be my first night actually sleeping here, this is not anything like a commune, it truly is the biblical representation of how we are called to live. I am surrounded by people who understand the calling of God to live and share in each others sorrows and joys. Men (and a woman) who strive to not live in a commune separated from society, but a community that interacts with society to spread the love that surrounds us and moves through us so that maybe, just maybe we might get it right one day and let Jesus be reflected in our faces, and get lucky enough to see Jesus in each other. I'm reminded now of a word Shane Claiborne used in his book Irresistible Revolution, one used in Calcutta when he saw Jesus in the eyes of a leper: namaste, or "I bless the holy spirit I see within you." I pray that each of us here has the opportunity to say such things, not only to each other, but to those who are the poor in spirit, to the surrounding community so desperate for the love of God.

a heavy grace

Jesus said that his yolk is easy and his burden light, but lately there have been more needs and burdens than I could possibly carry alone. Things are going well with me but so many people have burdens that love compels me to carry alongside them. Each unto itself seems large but bearable. But when in each direction you look you see another need, it quickly seems like you couldn't poosiby take on more. And it is to that place and at that time that more seems to come. We look to God for strength to continue and to finish what we have started. He points to our comunity and the fact that these yolks that I have embraced as my own are now being carried by my brothers around me. Together we pray and carry each other and those that God has entrusted to us. Then, in every direction you look, you find brothers and partners and friends. Love and laughter and peace. God's presence is felt in these holy others... in the poor and weak as much as the comrade at your side. These burdens are ours: yours, mine, and His.

The Elusive Wheel

Prison, Drugs, Violence, Rape, Poverty, Addiction, Homelessnes, Disability, Sickness, Illiteracy, and Isolation. Our house is daily in relationships with victims of these evil and distructive forces. We meet needs, bandage wounds, listen, and love. But I remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer saying that "It is not only the job of Christians to bandage the wounds of those crushed under the wheels of oppression, but to jam a spike in the wheel itself." I also remember Isaiah writing that we are to untie the cords of the yolk, but he also goes on to say that we are also to BREAK every yolk. What is it that we can stand against? Where is this wheel, this yolk? I heavily felt the weight of this question this morning as the house gathered for morning prayer and began to plead with God on behalf of each of these friends of ours. I know that we are doing good to stand beside them and love them and serve them, but as we prayed and one name followed the next I began to want to find the root. Now I know that I am not here to fix anything and I am not here to be a savior to anyone, but these charges from scripture and giants of the faith are compelling. Where is it that they are to be compelling us? I feel lost and unsure of the direction. I know that we will continue to love and serve the poor but I long to know where I can make a stand on there behalf. I want a crack at the wheel or yolk itsef! Is this a desire for greatness or specialness? I hope not. All I know is that the closer I get to the poor of this world, the more it hurts and the more I rage. Perhaps this is the encounter for the heart of God that we are praying for. A broken heart.

One year ago... Natalia after home church

Tonight:
Cooking for tons of people when I always hated to cook. Sitting and laughing in the crowded living-room, with my house-mates and several homeless people from our community. Pondering James, chapter 1, together. Wisdom flowed between us. In a moment no less miraculous every time it happens, the differences in skin color, in age, in walks of life, all shriveled and lost their power. Lord, we all need your strength. Lord, we all need your love to flow into us, and from us. From the aging addict to the freshman. Grant us your transforming love.

"What Lord, do you have for me here?"

Tonight I felt an answer.

"This, Natalia, is your Eden. Here, you have much to learn. Here, you have the chance to learn to love people different from yourself. Here you will be whom I created you to be. Here your life is not your own, here you will serve others."

So on Sept. 14, I turn 25 and nothing changes. Here I remain. Only, something I had once known but somehow forgotten is again being revealed to me. This neighborhood and it's people are profoundly beautiful. I really do love this city. So does God. And here I will be fulfilled.

Happy 26th!!

The Romero Garden

"It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own."

Archbishop Oscar Romero (martyred on March 24th 1980)

The above prayer was actually composed by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw as a reflection on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Bishop Romero. Bishop Untener included in a reflection book a passage titled "The mystery of the Romero Prayer." The mystery is that the words of the prayer are attributed to Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.

Grateful Inevitability

There is momentum about, a captivating path now forming, now leaving sparks to the left and to the right. What begins as a jerk away from a predictably impotent way of life finds focus on an omega point in the distance. It shines broadly enough to show how very much ground there is to cover. What a long journey it would be to that goal, that aspiration, that realization; and what loneliness and doubt threaten the aspirant, were it not for our fellows along the way. Those who do look to their left and to their right give more than just encouragement to another. To look on another's struggle without blinking or shirking away, but with the honest attentiveness with which one looks at one's self in a mirror, that is the point itself. And it cannot help but grow. In the body, only disease can spread, because health is a passive absence of sickness. But in the hearts of men, where disease is still subject to will and faith, healing can spread with a fury no cancer can rival.
And here we are, next to each other, no longer content with pretending to be free agents only. Now all things are at stake, because we can take stake in every man's story. God knows what towers are bound to topple when the bonds of self-interest are shaken off.
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.