INVICTUS

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

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...

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

My God, My Redeemer, My Savior

I suck, I am nothing...and glory to God for that.

My heart has been heavy lately. I have felt weighed down and thought many times to just give up. That maybe this community thing was just me getting caught up in the psych of it all. That I wasn't cut out to pursue God, or at least not as deeply as I desire. That maybe I can just go back to my old life without conviction, without watching and seeing pain all around me, that maybe I can just dance through life without having to carry any burdens. It has affected my attitude towards my community, towards my family, towards myself and towards God....and then He stepped in.

And now I can't stop crying this morning. I felt the glory of God, I felt His awesomeness, his power, his redemption. It was as if a veal was torn and I can see God all around me. I cant think of anything else, and I have so much to do, but I cant think of anything but Him. One of my family members just got back from a mission trip to Nicaragua the other day, a mission trip he wasn't supposed to go on, one that was a coincidence. Even then, he was just supposed to go and help build houses. He has never wanted to go to church, he has never wanted God...but we prayed.

I asked him how his trip went this morning and I saw God. I saw the light, I saw Jesus in His face. I saw the excitement of a new believer, with all the questions of a new believer. The hows and the whats and the whys. I heard him talk about the feelings and the tinglings, the overwhelming that comes with just being in the presence of the Spirit, the rush of the spirits waves crashing on our soul. I saw redemption and it shed away the rust that had encompassed my heart. I was reminded how mighty my God is, how much love my God has, and how my God never stops trying. I saw Christ save, I see Him saving still, and I can't stop crying. God has shown himself to both of us...to him through the poor and the good, and to me through him. Glory to God...He is mighty to save!!!

let us pray

In the face of danger and threats,

grant us peace.

In the face of insults and lies against us,

grant us peace.

When we are tempted with anger,

grant us peace.

When we cannot see You,

grant us peace.

When we do not know if You can hear us,

grant us peace.

When those around us fall to pieces,

grant us peace.

In all things, in all places, in every pain,

grant us peace.

I've seen life spring up through cracks in the concrete

We are situated on Nebraska Ave. & Lake. Just a block from one of the last remaining 'post war style' housing projects in Tampa. Growing up, before I even knew what Nebraska Avenue was, we used it as an insult in school. Even if I didn't know the actual street, I knew it a a symbol that meant prostitution & addiction. Now it is the neighborhood that I live in and it means beauty & pain, diversity and unity, the need for and the presence of the kingdom of God.
It is forgotten and abandon by the empire that is our American way of life. Our house is sandwiched between a condemned home that is boarded up and a demolished house that was crushed by a tree. Behind us, across the alley, is another vacant home that used to house men in recovery from alcoholism. Here we are in the middle of this abandon corner planting seeds of okra, cucumbers, love, peace, hospitality, and prayers for the kingdom to come. This is what Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day modeled as direct action. In a world that preaches individuality & privacy, we are crammed into a small house living in full view of each other & dependent on one another;in a world that teaches consumerism & materialism, we are having discussions and opportunities to share and give and break the chains that have been ours since childhood; in a world that ignores the poor and doesn't honor their humanity, we have the homeless over constantly for company or dinner or whatever, we know their names, we share their burdens, and we have them as our friends. This action is not so much to our credit as to our salvation. The poor are our teachers; the community, our discipline; the streets, our desert; and this house, our Eden.

Let's be clear:

I have no credentials, no reputation to precede me or give the impression of authority.

I am not holy enough to teach truth over and against the lies we tell ourselves and each other.

I am not wise, experienced or charismatic enough to lead people back to who they are, to be the person God made in his image.

Still he speaks to them as I sit and listen to their stories.

Glory to God in all things.

Just Sitting There

I have been reading Dorothy Day's autobiography entitled The Long Loneliness. It is a privilege to just bask in the reflections of a life so well spent. Yet, in all that she accomplished and all that she stood for she sums up her decades of ministry in the postscript of her book like this:

“We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in.

We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form, saying, “We need bread.” We could not say, “Go, be thou filled.” If there were six small loaves and a few fishes, we had to divide them. There was always bread.

We were just sitting there talking and people moved in on us. Let those who can take it, take it. Some moved out and that made room for more. And somehow the walls expanded.

We were just sitting there talking and someone said, “Let’s all go live on a farm.” It was as casual as all that, I often think. It just came about. It just happened.

I found myself, a barren woman, the joyful mother of children. It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

The most significant thing about The Catholic Worker is poverty, some say.

The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not alone any more.

But the final word is love. At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing, and our very faith in love has been tried through fire.

We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.

It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”

I am encouraged and can't wait to see what God might do where we are sitting and who we are sittin with.

Conscious Party Confessions

Give them a mic, give them a stage and a spotlight, just give them a voice. Give them a voice and they will correct you, inspire you, humor you, teach you, bless you, challenge you, and thank you. Some with amazing skill, some raw passion, sometimes drunken confession, sometimes sober, youth sing to the aged, elders give wisdom to adolescence, and all give Glory to God. The communal consciousness connects, conspires, and communes. God is present, honored, and we recognize that we are with family and share, sing, cry, confess, and enjoy the party that really is a small taste of the kingdom of God.

GETTIN' CONSCIOUS!