The Conscious Slumber Party

Well tonight was our monthly Conscious Party and we spent the last few days debating as to whether or not we should have it. Most of the people who come have no place to stay at night and it has been record cold nights for our area lately. We thought that having it might be a bad idea because either it would flop due to everyone trying to get their spot in a shelter or they would leave here too late to get in a shelter and would be out in the cold all night. Yesterday we decided to call it off but changed our mind when the underground told us that we didn't have to turn people out into the cold if we were willing to stay here with them. (a unique exception because ITS FRICKIN' COLD OUT THERE!!) We are not a shelter and were completely unprepared for it but jumped at the opportunity to provide warmth for our friends on the streets. We had a small turn out but an amazing night together. We ate chili, drank coffee and folks shared on the open mic. We heard stand up, singing, poetry, a skit, a testimony, and a few things i don't know how to describe. It is always a real privilege to share this night with the homeless and just be encouraged and awed by these voices from the streets. Tonight we were a little short on performers so I grabbed the guitar and got up to sing a Johnny Cash song for fun. Beau, a guy we just met shouted out a request for another Cash song and luckily I knew how to play it and half of the guys in the room sang it with me. I'm telling you it is a joy worth living for!
As the night slowed down we took what was left of the food and headed off to the lounge on the other side of the building to unwind and get some rest. I've never been at a church lock-in like this before! I've been laying on the floor thinking about the night and just had to run across the building and type this up while it was fresh in my mind. This is a night I don't want to forget. Tonight, Jesus has a warm place to lay his head.

Welfare, Government and Jesus

I read an article about the role Christianity plays in a welfare state and what the government's role should be in caring for the "least of these". Citing scripture as well as FDR's position on this subject, it displayed the arguments for and against government assistance. Most troubling about the article though was the response, and the overwhelming desire for people to eliminate or reduce government intervention and have welfare be a volunteer effort, even using scripture to back this point. So my question has become: where does government step in? "Capitalism elevates and sanctifies self-interest," yet "we are told to have the mind of Christ in elevating the interests of others over ourselves." How then can I live in a capitalistic society without being sucked into the capitalist machine?

It troubled me that the response to this article, mostly from relatively well-versed Christians, was to justify capitalism as well as to justify the rights of individualism first over the support of the "needy". How do we operate within this overwhelming attitude that many religious conservatives adhere to, the attitude that you should assist when you want to and to the extent that you want to?

I believe in giving until it hurts, and then more, but it is something I am not used to and something that society says I should not burden myself with. I should live in my nice suburban South Tampa condo, drive down to the ghetto when convenient, do my couple hours of service and drive back home, stopping by Daily Eats, of course to get my bagel with schmear and Starbucks to get a tall caramel Frappuccino.

I'm not saying either of those places are sinful to enjoy, but we should burden ourselves with giving until it hurts! We should live in the ghetto and take up the yoke of the needy! Teresa also said, "If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." But how do we shy away from our selfish desires? How do we give so that our efforts are not in vain and love until there can be no more hurt? How do we become effective when Christians do not share the attitude of Christ? Growing up surrounded by the idea of self interest, and existing in a capitalist society, how do we live a life all about justice?

To understand God With Us

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year, but not for the bases of what it represents, rather for what the season brings (aside from massive obsession with consumerism, greed and ruining ones credit). It is a season that brings people together, it is the time where my family always gets together. But what does this season really represent? Although it is widely accepted that Jesus was born in the Spring, this is a celebration of his birth, the coming of Emmanuel; but in Christmas, what is really meant by his birth?

Israel was a name given to Jacob after his wrestling with an angel of God. Israel, roughly meaning struggles or wrestles with God, is the story of the Hebrew nation, the constant falling away and coming back to God. His chosen people consistently struggled with God and the world, going in and out of captivity by one nation to another. What would it have been like to struggle with God in the way the Hebrews did? Promised a savior, a Messiah to rescue them from bondage and struggle, what would it be like to pray for a savior to come and rescue?

Then Jesus is born, the savior, the answered prayer. What would it be like to hear of a savior, one born in a barn and fleeing Herod's wrath. The King born into a child. How would I react? What would I feel? What would it be like to experience the birth of a savior that we had been praying for? To see and worship Emmanuel, even as a babe? When I listen to Advent music and think about the meaning behind the lyrics I wonder how it would be to experience the actual birth of the savior my people have been praying for for centuries.

I know Christ, His love is within me and I have known my savior for years, but in the mix of the holiday season, and the pressure society places on people corrupting the true meaning of Christmas, I want to go back to the root of the holiday, the meaning of the birth of the savior, to experience the birth of God With Us.

The Paradox

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

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

Here are a few other quotes to meditate on:

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

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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

- Galatians 6:9

"Give me health and a day...

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

-Emerson

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

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

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,

When the moon is new and thin,

Into our hearts high yearnings

Come welling and surging in-

Come from the mystic ocean,

Whose rim no foot has trod,-

Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

Disease

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

Pass the bread

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

Happy Thanksgiving

The Evolution of Service

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

Here's a fun discovery:

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

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

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

You Wanna Change the World...

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

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