I'm currently listening to a series of lectures by Brene Brown called The Power of Vulnerability. It is a completely challenging series for me. If you've read anything she's written, or heard any of her talks on TED, you know Brown is a shame and vulnerability researcher whose goal is to interpret the data rendered by thousands of sociological and psychological studies and interviews. In the midst of her research, Brown found remarkable similarities in people she calls "wholehearted". She has found that many of these people, who stand out from the crowd and truly live full and fulfilling lives, do certain things almost universally. One of these behaviors that Brown discovered is the ability to embrace vulnerability. I can honestly tell you, if Brene Brown wasn't such a great storyteller and so magnetically vulnerable herself, I would absolutely cease from reading or listening to anything the counsels me to become more vulnerable. I don't do vulnerable. I do calculated imitations of vulnerability to engender myself to people, but choosing to be myself with all of my weaknesses and warts, whether people accept me or not? Yeah, that's not me.
My greatest shield is and always has been built of words. I usually have the ability to be very deliberate with my what I say. I know how to drop a great cuss word for shock value and then apologize for my language as though it was an accident, when I actually planned it all along. I know how to communicate with people in a multitude of theological camps without offending, unless that's my intent. I know how to confess the sins that everyone has pity on while skipping over the darker ones that are still tucked neatly inside my heart. I rarely get careless with my words. I take communication very seriously. It is what I love. I feel like this is a problem for me. Sometimes my kids show me a better way.
Rebekah is a communicator. She is six years old and she talks, and debates, and talks, and argues, and talks, and reasons, and talks, and lectures, and talks, and talks, and talks. I'm told her name means, "the end of an argument". Though she wins most of her arguments, I've yet to see an end to her propensity for the act. What I love most about the way Rebekah talks is that when she does it, her ability outstrips her filter. She says some great stuff. Though I could fill multiple blog posts with Rebekah stories, I'll pull one from my storyteller's bag to stand for all.
We had a friend over for dinner. He was a bit overweight, but not nearly as heavy as I was (am). Through dinner, Bekah stared at him affectionately. In truth, she looked like a love-struck adolescent girl staring a poster of the latest teen idol. I don't know what was different about this night, but Rebekah couldn't take her eyes from my friend. About three-fourths of the way through the meal she finally finds the courage to communicate her new found love. She said, "You know what? You're FAT, just like my dad." This affectionate line comes with a tilt of the head and a dreamy look. The cruelty of her words were completely rendered meaningless by the obvious tenderness of her demeanor. My buddy laughed a little a said, "Well, thank you." as the same amount of sincerity that she has used to compliment him.
Josiah has never been as relentless a communicator as Bekah, but he was a typical 2-3 year old. He asked a million questions a minute and "why" was liberally sprinkled into the mix to keep the answers thoroughly exhausting. A trip anywhere was accomplished to the theme music of "What's that?", "What's this?", "Where are we?", "What's that?" Because his questioning was so indefatigable you had to be careful you didn't get to close to people of races that Josiah wasn't familiar with, or the cashier with the really bad acne, or the lady with the toddler who won't stop throwing a fit as Josiah would almost always shout to me, "Why doesn't that mommy just spank him?"
When Josiah was in this phase, before we had so many mouths to feed that we were forced shop at Aldis and bulk warehouse stores, we shopped at the Hyvee that was close to our house. We usually shopped at night because we liked to do it together and there were far fewer people in the store. It was very common for us to share the store with a little couple. I called them midgets back then, but I believe that this is no longer socially acceptable. If I'm right, they prefer little people. The family I'm speaking of consisted of a husband and wife, both little people, and a son who was normal sized. The mother was remarkably pleasant. She was always smiling and incredibly upbeat. The father was her polar opposite. I hate making a judgement call when I really didn't know him, but he seemed to be the kind of person who disliked his lot in life and assumed that you were going to abuse him because he was small and therefore decided to be overtly prickly all the time. He always wore a cartoonish frown and crossed his arms in a decidedly pouty way. We grew as familiar and cordial with them as you could imagine being with someone you see in the grocery story 15-20 times. We never had dinner together, but as we passed in the canned goods isle, we gave each other that knowing look and nod. "So we meet again."
One night Josiah and I went grocery shopping together. It was a guys night out and Hyvee was the venue we were rocking. With my son in his seat and my list in my hand I set out to hunt. The very first isle that I turned down, once I cleared the produce section, had a family in it. It was the little family. I looked down at my son and terror shot through my body. I could only imagine the questions that Josiah might ask if he saw them, especially since he had watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on VHS lately. I literally backed out of the isle and went to the other end of the store. The next 30 minutes were spent playing a game I titled, "Dodge the Little People". I can't find my wife in a grocery store with two cell phones, a GPS, a team of rescue dogs, but every isle that turned down this night had little people in it. I became a professional at backing up a shopping cart. I finally made it to the check out unscathed and guess who get into the one and only open checker behind us. Yep. Josiah's eyes pop open like he just saw the most interesting thing, ever. I quickly stepped to the side to shield his view. He shot the other direction. I intercepted. I could only keep this up for so long without looking ridiculously obvious. Josiah shot back the other way and got a clear view. A gigantic smile spread across his face followed by a disturbed look of confusion. He sat back up straight, looked me in my eyes, ignored my begging "shhhhhhhhh", and said at the top of his young voice, "Hey Daddy, that one must be Grumpy Dwarf!" The cashier did that snort thing you do when you are trying to hold in a laugh but fail, I heard the mom behind me snicker, and I actually heard the dad "harumph". It was audible. I turned, hoping to use a handful of my well-crafted words to fix things but found that the best that I could come up with was, "I'm sorry." Incidentally, as I looked at the dad, his non-verbals were also screaming "harumph".
Why do some of the things that kids say make me so uncomfortable? Why does unguarded, honest talk scare me so bad? Why am I so tempted to go up and edit some of the self-revelatory parts of this blog? The answer is vulnerability. I don't like vulnerability. Kids simply speak from their hearts with no fear of judgement and no accompanying filter. When a little girl loves her daddy and she sees a man who reminds her of him, she says so in whatever words come to mind. When a little boy who is fascinated by little people (incidentally, Josiah is still fascinated by little people, he considers it a major highlight when he sees them) sees a person who fits neatly into a category that he already has in his little head, he says it. Kids hearts are open books. They are vulnerable because the know no other way to be. When Jesus says that I must become as a little child, I have to assume this in one of those traits that he is speaking of.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Combating chaos
My wife labels. I've tried to do an intervention, but she'll have to accept that she has a problem before she'll be willing to get help. She has a Brother model PT-70 labeler. It is not the Cadillac of labelers, but it's a solid mid-range sedan, maybe a Camry or an Accord. I bought it for her with several colors of labeling tape and she was more moved than she would have been had I purchased flowers, chocolates, or diamonds (diamonds because she does the finances and would never allow me to spend that much money). Esther once spent a summer doing a thorough inventory of the entire house, room by room, drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf. Everything that we owned, except the stuff in my sacred Junk Drawer, made it on the inventory. The goal was to place this inventory in clear plastic sleeves, place the sleeves in a three ring binder, and place the binder where everyone could access it. She also ran all over the house sticking little printed labels, both square and level, on everything we own. Using the inventory binder and the Brother PT-70 labels, every person in the house could pick up a misplaced item and find out exactly where this lost thing belongs, and hopefully return it. It was a rock solid plan except for the fact that we never used it.
As a rather disorganized person myself, Esther's behavior has always struck me as a compulsive disorder. She squirms in her seat at church whenever she hears a sermon about taking a Sabbath because a day with no work means a day of losing ground in the war against chaos and disorganization. Esther used to love watching the HGTV design shows where a team of experts would walk into a house that had been overrun by clutter and would transform it into a well organized, labeled space. Her soul resonated with this work. In 22 minutes of pseudo-reality TV, she would experience the presence of God. With this divine connection in mind, she once tried watching an episode of the pseudo-reality TV show, Hoarders, but literally broke out into a cold sweat and had trouble breathing simply by looking at how disorganized life can get. I would have to say that when preachers discuss hell, Esther doesn't picture flames, she pictures dusty piles of magazines and news papers stacked six feet tall and trash bags full of unworn clothes. I, unfortunately, could learn to function just fine in Esther's hell.
I have been thinking a lot about this idea of combating chaos lately as I've been talking with my homeless friend, Greg. Greg lives in a tent. He used to have a big tent, but other than it's size, there wasn't anything fancy about it. It was a tent that anyone can buy at Walmart. His tent was packed with stuff that most people throw away, but it was all Greg's stuff, and he was therefore attached to it. As the city emptied the homeless camps by the river, Greg had to move and as he couldn't haul all of his stuff on his back, he was forced to abandon his clearing, his stuff, and his tent. We bought Greg a new tent, but when I gave it to him, though he was thankful, his depression was palpable. Though there are some deeply seated issues that contribute to Greg's situation, he still has a certain vivacity. He is playful and ornery. The first thing he says when someone walks up to him is, "I didn't do it." That spark has been missing since he had to move. Last Sunday I found out why.
Greg is overwhelmed by the thought of clearing a new space in the woods. His previous space didn't seem to me to be anything worth an emotional attachment, but according to Greg, it was completely overgrown when he "moved" there. He removed small volunteer trees, cleared brush, created paths, and established spaces to accommodate all of the necessities of life. His tent was level and there were no stumps poking him in the back. In short, Greg had fought the chaos of nature and brought enough organization to one little spot to accommodate his life. His current deep sadness is in the fact that he has to start over. In Greg's heart, chaos won this battle and he's wrestling with feeling that he may not have the strength left to win the war.
People much smarter than me have noticed and taught the idea that the initial metaphor for human habitation on earth is a garden while the conclusive picture is a city. The general idea is that the progression of human existence is away from chaos toward organization. I don't want to over-think this comparison because there is something beautiful and organized about nature and especially gardens and I have seen far too much chaos in the city, but I think the basic structure of the metaphor is sound. A Biblical picture with which I am more familiar is that of Noah. A couple of weeks ago we read this story during our morning devotions with the kids. We read about Noah's exit from the ark, which incidentally usually gets left out of the Sunday School lessons as Noah wound up drunk and naked and making a fool of himself. I can relate. The idea that we focused on over breakfast was the fact that Noah's first instinct upon leaving the ark was to plant a vineyard. He was drawn to clear space, till earth, plant in rows, harvest, ferment, and bottle. His first instinct was to move from the chaos of a flood to the beautiful structure of a vineyard.
Chaos comes in many forms. It can be in the woods, in a junk drawer, and in our hearts. Part of what makes us human is the desire to fight against it. We turn a patch of grass into rows of radishes and beets, we use a Brother PT-70 to keep the "stomach and digestive meds" in the right box, and we endlessly hunt for ways to bring peace to our souls. One of the major themes of the Bible is Shalom. It's peace, but a deeper kind of peace than the English word indicates. Without pretending to be a Hebrew scholar, I will say this of Shalom, it is the opposite of chaos in all of it's forms. It is the deep sigh of satisfaction we get when we finish a project, it's the hug after making up from a fight, and it's the incredible rest that comes with finally realizing that we are truly loved by God. We were made for shalom. This is why we get depressed when we lose our tent, why we plant veggies in rows, and it is why a Brother PT-70 can cause tears of joy.
I have been thinking a lot about this idea of combating chaos lately as I've been talking with my homeless friend, Greg. Greg lives in a tent. He used to have a big tent, but other than it's size, there wasn't anything fancy about it. It was a tent that anyone can buy at Walmart. His tent was packed with stuff that most people throw away, but it was all Greg's stuff, and he was therefore attached to it. As the city emptied the homeless camps by the river, Greg had to move and as he couldn't haul all of his stuff on his back, he was forced to abandon his clearing, his stuff, and his tent. We bought Greg a new tent, but when I gave it to him, though he was thankful, his depression was palpable. Though there are some deeply seated issues that contribute to Greg's situation, he still has a certain vivacity. He is playful and ornery. The first thing he says when someone walks up to him is, "I didn't do it." That spark has been missing since he had to move. Last Sunday I found out why.
Greg is overwhelmed by the thought of clearing a new space in the woods. His previous space didn't seem to me to be anything worth an emotional attachment, but according to Greg, it was completely overgrown when he "moved" there. He removed small volunteer trees, cleared brush, created paths, and established spaces to accommodate all of the necessities of life. His tent was level and there were no stumps poking him in the back. In short, Greg had fought the chaos of nature and brought enough organization to one little spot to accommodate his life. His current deep sadness is in the fact that he has to start over. In Greg's heart, chaos won this battle and he's wrestling with feeling that he may not have the strength left to win the war.
People much smarter than me have noticed and taught the idea that the initial metaphor for human habitation on earth is a garden while the conclusive picture is a city. The general idea is that the progression of human existence is away from chaos toward organization. I don't want to over-think this comparison because there is something beautiful and organized about nature and especially gardens and I have seen far too much chaos in the city, but I think the basic structure of the metaphor is sound. A Biblical picture with which I am more familiar is that of Noah. A couple of weeks ago we read this story during our morning devotions with the kids. We read about Noah's exit from the ark, which incidentally usually gets left out of the Sunday School lessons as Noah wound up drunk and naked and making a fool of himself. I can relate. The idea that we focused on over breakfast was the fact that Noah's first instinct upon leaving the ark was to plant a vineyard. He was drawn to clear space, till earth, plant in rows, harvest, ferment, and bottle. His first instinct was to move from the chaos of a flood to the beautiful structure of a vineyard.
Chaos comes in many forms. It can be in the woods, in a junk drawer, and in our hearts. Part of what makes us human is the desire to fight against it. We turn a patch of grass into rows of radishes and beets, we use a Brother PT-70 to keep the "stomach and digestive meds" in the right box, and we endlessly hunt for ways to bring peace to our souls. One of the major themes of the Bible is Shalom. It's peace, but a deeper kind of peace than the English word indicates. Without pretending to be a Hebrew scholar, I will say this of Shalom, it is the opposite of chaos in all of it's forms. It is the deep sigh of satisfaction we get when we finish a project, it's the hug after making up from a fight, and it's the incredible rest that comes with finally realizing that we are truly loved by God. We were made for shalom. This is why we get depressed when we lose our tent, why we plant veggies in rows, and it is why a Brother PT-70 can cause tears of joy.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Love My Pups
In my last post, I mentioned the fact that my boys and I were going to join a small, peaceful protest to show our disgust for the way that KCMO is treating our Off-Grid friends. The protest never happened, but it set into motion a night that has impacted the eight of us who showed up to be identified with the homeless, very much.
As we arrived at City Hall and didn't find any of our friends, I called Jim, the crazy person who introduced my church and my family to this group of marginalized people, to find out what happened to the gathering. He had little more information than we did but told me that Crystal, a house-less lady whom we dearly love, was sitting in the camp that she shares with a few other people, all by herself. My boys, myself, Josh, a friend of the family, and Morgan, my second son's girlfriend, were all disturbed by this and decided to venture to the camp and collect Crystal if possible.
Following Jim's directions, we drove into a completely commercial district, ventured over a levee, hiked though a patch of woods, and eventually found the camp where Crystal sat in an armchair, in a very large structure, with a single candle for light. Bandit, the dog who was tied up at the entrance to the cabin, barked loudly to announce our approach, but was quick to lick our extended palms with an inviting wag of his stubby tail. We sat with Crystal and talked about the fate of our other friends, her love for her dogs, and any supplies that she was lacking. We asked her to come home with us until this whole mess was sorted out but Crystal convinced us that packing in the dark would prove more stressful than sleeping alone, and there was no chance that she was going to leave without her dogs.
Bear in mind as you imagine Crystal that this woman simply can not take care of herself, but she takes her responsibility to care for her dogs very seriously. She told us several times as we talked that Missy, her personal dog, had all of her shots, was legally tagged, and was spayed. She makes sure to find someone who is willing to take her dog to the vet when needed. Crystal loves her dogs and would prefer to sit in an over-sized tent, all alone, in a subculture where looting a defenseless camp is always a risk, rather than sleeping in a soft bed, in an air-conditioned house, if it means leaving her dogs behind. As a person who has no pets and really doesn't like sharing my living space with animals, this shocked but inspired me.
We left Crystal in her camp and drove home. The van-ride back to our house was silent as we all struggled with helplessness. Questions like, "why?", and "who can we contact?", and "what else can we do?", and "this makes no sense, is this really happening?" banged ceaselessly through our heads. None of us slept well as we had received a commitment from Crystal that if we returned the next day, when she could pack in the daylight, she would come home with us. Her one and only prerequisite was that we take and care for her dogs. To love on Crystal without loving on her dogs is not to love on Crystal at all.
We returned to the homeless camp today after work and Crystal was packed and ready. We collected the two dogs and the bunch of us drove to our house. We sat in the backyard and all of my kids completely loved having two dogs to play with. We bought dog food, found a shelter for the pups, and talked the sun down. We ate dinner together and slowly settled into beds for the night. As I thought about our evening together, it struck me that the most responsive Crystal was to our love was when we were accepting and loving on her goofy dogs.
I don't want to overstretch the metaphor, but as I watched Crystal absolutely glow with joy as she watched my kids delighting in her puppies, all I could imagine was God glowing with joy when people take delight in His goofy children. I could hear Jesus telling Peter, "If you love me, feed my sheep". I could hear Jesus saying, "When you do good things to the least among you, you do them to me." I must be honest, I have always made these verses far more spiritual than they felt tonight. I have taken them as stern commands from a demanding God. Tonight, that all changed. Tonight, in my mind's eye, God looked like a wrinkled, 90-pound homeless woman, rocking back and forth with joyful satisfaction as she watched people love what she herself loves. John 21 and Matthew 25 don't sound like commands tonight. They sound like the heartfelt request from a loving God to please, oh please, love what I love.
As we arrived at City Hall and didn't find any of our friends, I called Jim, the crazy person who introduced my church and my family to this group of marginalized people, to find out what happened to the gathering. He had little more information than we did but told me that Crystal, a house-less lady whom we dearly love, was sitting in the camp that she shares with a few other people, all by herself. My boys, myself, Josh, a friend of the family, and Morgan, my second son's girlfriend, were all disturbed by this and decided to venture to the camp and collect Crystal if possible.
Following Jim's directions, we drove into a completely commercial district, ventured over a levee, hiked though a patch of woods, and eventually found the camp where Crystal sat in an armchair, in a very large structure, with a single candle for light. Bandit, the dog who was tied up at the entrance to the cabin, barked loudly to announce our approach, but was quick to lick our extended palms with an inviting wag of his stubby tail. We sat with Crystal and talked about the fate of our other friends, her love for her dogs, and any supplies that she was lacking. We asked her to come home with us until this whole mess was sorted out but Crystal convinced us that packing in the dark would prove more stressful than sleeping alone, and there was no chance that she was going to leave without her dogs.
Bear in mind as you imagine Crystal that this woman simply can not take care of herself, but she takes her responsibility to care for her dogs very seriously. She told us several times as we talked that Missy, her personal dog, had all of her shots, was legally tagged, and was spayed. She makes sure to find someone who is willing to take her dog to the vet when needed. Crystal loves her dogs and would prefer to sit in an over-sized tent, all alone, in a subculture where looting a defenseless camp is always a risk, rather than sleeping in a soft bed, in an air-conditioned house, if it means leaving her dogs behind. As a person who has no pets and really doesn't like sharing my living space with animals, this shocked but inspired me.
We left Crystal in her camp and drove home. The van-ride back to our house was silent as we all struggled with helplessness. Questions like, "why?", and "who can we contact?", and "what else can we do?", and "this makes no sense, is this really happening?" banged ceaselessly through our heads. None of us slept well as we had received a commitment from Crystal that if we returned the next day, when she could pack in the daylight, she would come home with us. Her one and only prerequisite was that we take and care for her dogs. To love on Crystal without loving on her dogs is not to love on Crystal at all.
We returned to the homeless camp today after work and Crystal was packed and ready. We collected the two dogs and the bunch of us drove to our house. We sat in the backyard and all of my kids completely loved having two dogs to play with. We bought dog food, found a shelter for the pups, and talked the sun down. We ate dinner together and slowly settled into beds for the night. As I thought about our evening together, it struck me that the most responsive Crystal was to our love was when we were accepting and loving on her goofy dogs.
I don't want to overstretch the metaphor, but as I watched Crystal absolutely glow with joy as she watched my kids delighting in her puppies, all I could imagine was God glowing with joy when people take delight in His goofy children. I could hear Jesus telling Peter, "If you love me, feed my sheep". I could hear Jesus saying, "When you do good things to the least among you, you do them to me." I must be honest, I have always made these verses far more spiritual than they felt tonight. I have taken them as stern commands from a demanding God. Tonight, that all changed. Tonight, in my mind's eye, God looked like a wrinkled, 90-pound homeless woman, rocking back and forth with joyful satisfaction as she watched people love what she herself loves. John 21 and Matthew 25 don't sound like commands tonight. They sound like the heartfelt request from a loving God to please, oh please, love what I love.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Identification
Church this week was light. There were fewer people than normal, (not that we are ever a large church), due to the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend and many of our folks are traveling. Despite the smaller than usual attendance, we still had 22 of our Off-Grid members present. The atmosphere was very tense. When something is bothering my house-less friends, we know it. Most of them wear their hearts on their sleeves. Many a sleeve was in pain this Sunday.
It seems that Kansas City has passed a No Camping city ordinance. It's a pretty simple law that does nothing but forbid open camping in city limits. It affects very few people and passed with no fan-fair. After all, the only real people hurt by this ordinance aren't exactly showing up to city council meetings to voice opposition. If you do a Google search of the 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws (which you can also find here) you'll see that Kansas City made #4 with this little piece of legislature. The law has been in effect for a few years now, so basically, anytime the KCPD needs to (or wants to) they can empty homeless camps and apparently confiscate camping gear with nothing but the No Camping ordinance behind them. The city has planned a few of these camp-clearing parties for this week and my Off-Grid friends were hurting pretty badly over the whole deal.
It was pretty amazing to watch several homeless folk from a "safe" camp volunteer to help those living in targeted camps while a group of Johnson County residents made arrangements for driving people around and moving as much gear as possible. We've learned to use words like "house-less" instead of homeless because many of these people have lived in the same dwelling, in the same camp, for several years. They have a home. To grasp the emotions of the city bulldozing (literally) a homeless camp you'd have to imagine learning, two to three days in advance, that your house is slated to be bulldozed and smashed with a wrecking ball, and you only have a day or two to get your stuff out of the way (I'm picturing the opening scene from the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Oh, and don't forget that you have to move your stuff when you don't own a vehicle.
I have to admit that a couple years ago I wouldn't have known, or cared, about the fate of bunch of homeless camps by the river. It's not that I was mean or uncaring, it's that my world was far from there. I honestly didn't know a single homeless person and wouldn't have known where to find one if I had tried. I had a Hollywood picture of homelessness that involved a person living next to a dumpster in an alley, sleeping in a cardboard box while all of their earthly possessions rested in a shopping cart nearby. I had absolutely ZERO reason to care about a camping ban in Kansas City. It is different now. Now it's not an obscure law in the city. It's not something concerning the homeless issue. It's not even something that affects homeless people. It is something that hurts Greg and Gary and Crystal and Mike and more. I now have real names and real faces and real lives to place in front of the proverbial societal bulldozer. The No Camping law does not affect my life at all, but it does. Because of who I have chosen to identify myself with, it affects me greatly.
I asked my pastor, Tim, several weeks ago while reading a biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, how a Christian knows where to draw the line between our Christian identity and our Nationalism. His answer, in the context of Bonhoeffer's rejection of the Nazi party and their Aryan discrimination, has been rattling through my head since I heard that my friends' camp is getting bulldozed. Tim said, "One of the keys to subverting the systems of the world is the act of standing with the marginalized - to make their problems our problems. We do this so that when all the powers, really the very nature of evil, attack the vulnerable, they attack us, too (we are not actually vulnerable, but make ourselves so for the gospel)." This is not my favorite part of the Gospel. It is very inconvenient to have my world disrupted because Kansas City is abusing a small handful of defenseless people. Identifying with the vulnerable and therefore becoming vulnerable means opening my life up to the point that something as little as a Camping Ban can rock my world.
My sons and I are going to go down to City Hall tonight where a small ragged bunch of our house-less (and now unfortunately homeless) friends are staging a little protest. It won't be grand and probably won't be effective, but we'll identify ourselves with them. We will be counted among their numbers and we will be hurt by what hurts them. I don't think it is right to deal with "issues". I don't want to vote on how to handle "situations". Underneath those words are people. I don't know how to handle homelessness. I'm not that smart. I don't know what to do about situations like property-value, waste-management, and scenic-beauty. Those are also above my pay-grade. But I know that Crystal will always give me hug and tell me about her dog. I know that Mike always has a book and loves to talk literature. I know that Gary does his best to look out for his house-less neighbors and tries to take care of everyone. And, I know that Greg needs a friend, and I'm proud that he picked me.
It seems that Kansas City has passed a No Camping city ordinance. It's a pretty simple law that does nothing but forbid open camping in city limits. It affects very few people and passed with no fan-fair. After all, the only real people hurt by this ordinance aren't exactly showing up to city council meetings to voice opposition. If you do a Google search of the 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws (which you can also find here) you'll see that Kansas City made #4 with this little piece of legislature. The law has been in effect for a few years now, so basically, anytime the KCPD needs to (or wants to) they can empty homeless camps and apparently confiscate camping gear with nothing but the No Camping ordinance behind them. The city has planned a few of these camp-clearing parties for this week and my Off-Grid friends were hurting pretty badly over the whole deal.
It was pretty amazing to watch several homeless folk from a "safe" camp volunteer to help those living in targeted camps while a group of Johnson County residents made arrangements for driving people around and moving as much gear as possible. We've learned to use words like "house-less" instead of homeless because many of these people have lived in the same dwelling, in the same camp, for several years. They have a home. To grasp the emotions of the city bulldozing (literally) a homeless camp you'd have to imagine learning, two to three days in advance, that your house is slated to be bulldozed and smashed with a wrecking ball, and you only have a day or two to get your stuff out of the way (I'm picturing the opening scene from the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Oh, and don't forget that you have to move your stuff when you don't own a vehicle.
I have to admit that a couple years ago I wouldn't have known, or cared, about the fate of bunch of homeless camps by the river. It's not that I was mean or uncaring, it's that my world was far from there. I honestly didn't know a single homeless person and wouldn't have known where to find one if I had tried. I had a Hollywood picture of homelessness that involved a person living next to a dumpster in an alley, sleeping in a cardboard box while all of their earthly possessions rested in a shopping cart nearby. I had absolutely ZERO reason to care about a camping ban in Kansas City. It is different now. Now it's not an obscure law in the city. It's not something concerning the homeless issue. It's not even something that affects homeless people. It is something that hurts Greg and Gary and Crystal and Mike and more. I now have real names and real faces and real lives to place in front of the proverbial societal bulldozer. The No Camping law does not affect my life at all, but it does. Because of who I have chosen to identify myself with, it affects me greatly.
I asked my pastor, Tim, several weeks ago while reading a biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, how a Christian knows where to draw the line between our Christian identity and our Nationalism. His answer, in the context of Bonhoeffer's rejection of the Nazi party and their Aryan discrimination, has been rattling through my head since I heard that my friends' camp is getting bulldozed. Tim said, "One of the keys to subverting the systems of the world is the act of standing with the marginalized - to make their problems our problems. We do this so that when all the powers, really the very nature of evil, attack the vulnerable, they attack us, too (we are not actually vulnerable, but make ourselves so for the gospel)." This is not my favorite part of the Gospel. It is very inconvenient to have my world disrupted because Kansas City is abusing a small handful of defenseless people. Identifying with the vulnerable and therefore becoming vulnerable means opening my life up to the point that something as little as a Camping Ban can rock my world.
My sons and I are going to go down to City Hall tonight where a small ragged bunch of our house-less (and now unfortunately homeless) friends are staging a little protest. It won't be grand and probably won't be effective, but we'll identify ourselves with them. We will be counted among their numbers and we will be hurt by what hurts them. I don't think it is right to deal with "issues". I don't want to vote on how to handle "situations". Underneath those words are people. I don't know how to handle homelessness. I'm not that smart. I don't know what to do about situations like property-value, waste-management, and scenic-beauty. Those are also above my pay-grade. But I know that Crystal will always give me hug and tell me about her dog. I know that Mike always has a book and loves to talk literature. I know that Gary does his best to look out for his house-less neighbors and tries to take care of everyone. And, I know that Greg needs a friend, and I'm proud that he picked me.
Monday, May 20, 2013
It's a Foot Thing
I've decided to start a new Blog. My last Blog was about my family, which is relatively unusual as there are 15 of us (soon to be 16). I hope to continue telling our stories, but as our lives have taken a few turns lately that have pushed us into some new and unusual directions, I thought it fitting to create a space to share my thoughts on a broader scope of topics. This is that space.
For the past year we have been hanging out with this rag tag bunch of folks called Redemption Church. We have fallen in love with this gang and through their fellowship have found ourselves in some great and challenging situations. Compared to our typical Sunday morning experiences over the past 20 years, we've gone off-grid. We have found ourselves doing some things in the name of Church that we have never done, and have become convinced that we are exactly where God wants us. This little group of ragamuffins whom we are proud to claim as our church family, has fumbled its way into a vibrant, growing ministry to Kansas City's homeless. We have been blessed to be a part of the team of people who are wrestling with how to do this well while still staying faithful to our call to rightly ordered worship. We don't always get it right, but we feel that choosing to stay in this tension is certainly right.
Since coming to Redemption Church we have had an almost incoherent homeless man feed our two-year-old son his lunch, one bite at a time. My son Elijah and I have gone into the woods to set up a tent and bedding for a homeless guy in his mid 60s who refused to come stay with us through a snow storm. We have met a homeless friend under a bridge to give him a new tent my oldest son bought and an old pair of my work boots that still had a few miles left in them. Elijah and I dressed a freshly showered man on a Sunday morning when he was in no condition to dress himself. These are all stories that I will no doubt tell in time, but this post is about feet.
This past Sunday, we had our homeless friends over to our house for lunch. There were about 30 of them and we had a great afternoon. This is something that we try to do once a month. We ate pasta with sausage and cream sauce, focaccia bread, and a fantastic salad followed by Esther's homemade Raffaello cake and/or her pound cake with fresh berries and lemon curd. We sat in the yard next to a beautiful pond and told stories and laughed until our sides hurt. It was a wonderful afternoon with people we love and for us, it is just what we do. We love to have people in our home, we love to feed them, and we love to make them feel loved. Some would consider having 30 guests over for dinner a challenge, and having 30 people from off the grid over to your house crazy. For me, the only hard part was the foot thing.
At church, before any of this wonderful afternoon had an opportunity to begin, my friend Whiskey, who was in rather bad shape due to the fact that the police impounded his tent and backpack and left him to sleep uncovered in the rain, decided to exchange his old, beat-up, pair of boots, for a new, donated pair in the middle of the worship service. A gentleman who hasn't been going to the church for long, helped Whiskey put the new boots on as he noticed that Whiskey was struggling to do so on his own. Immediately after getting the boots on, Whiskey remembered that he hadn't changed his wet socks for dry ones. Being a veteran at sleeping in the rain, he knew the value of getting his feet dry as soon as possible. Whiskey removed the new boots and then pulled off his wet, dirty socks. I asked him what he was doing and he carefully whispered to me that he needed dry socks. Jim, the guy who, along with his wife, brings these members of our church to worship with us every week, found some socks for Whiskey and I took them into the sanctuary where my pastor, Tim, was preaching. This is when the problem hit me. Whiskey was going to need help getting these socks on and I don't do feet.
For the 21 years that Esther and I have been together, I have told her that I love her from the ankles up. She is perfect and there is nothing particularly wrong with her feet, other than the fact that they are feet and I don't like feet. I'm not even fond of my own feet. I do happen to like baby feet, but only for the first year. After that, they are real feet and therefore nasty. If I stay clear of my wife's feet and the feet of my 18 month-old children, I am not getting anywhere near the wet, dirty, size 14 feet of my friend who probably hasn't had a bath in a few weeks. I simply am not capable of that. Fortunately, God is. Swallowing my considerable pride, submitting my foot phobias to Jesus, and praying hard that my face not betray my disgust, I dropped to my knees and covered my friend's naked, vulnerable feet. I laced up his new boots and carried his wet socks to the laundry bag. I washed my hands with water hot enough to burn me and dunked them in hand-sanitizer, not because Whiskey is dirty, but because I have a foot thing.
We can't judge another person's sacrifice. Sometimes a mite is a fortune and a fortune is a mite. Some of the people that I am church with are taking up their cross by simply choosing to fellowship at Redemption Church My heroes, Jim and Jennifer's crosses makes mine look embarrassingly easy. Many who wouldn't want these guys in their homes, wouldn't have thought twice about changing Whiskey's socks. What comes naturally to you is a cross to me, as your cross may be what I enjoy. What is important is that we each take up our own cross and follow Him. Your neighbor's cross is not yours. You will have plenty to keep you busy right there on your own back. I learned this Sunday that I need Jesus to help me carry mine. There are things that I can only do in His strength. This definitely includes feet.
For the past year we have been hanging out with this rag tag bunch of folks called Redemption Church. We have fallen in love with this gang and through their fellowship have found ourselves in some great and challenging situations. Compared to our typical Sunday morning experiences over the past 20 years, we've gone off-grid. We have found ourselves doing some things in the name of Church that we have never done, and have become convinced that we are exactly where God wants us. This little group of ragamuffins whom we are proud to claim as our church family, has fumbled its way into a vibrant, growing ministry to Kansas City's homeless. We have been blessed to be a part of the team of people who are wrestling with how to do this well while still staying faithful to our call to rightly ordered worship. We don't always get it right, but we feel that choosing to stay in this tension is certainly right.
Since coming to Redemption Church we have had an almost incoherent homeless man feed our two-year-old son his lunch, one bite at a time. My son Elijah and I have gone into the woods to set up a tent and bedding for a homeless guy in his mid 60s who refused to come stay with us through a snow storm. We have met a homeless friend under a bridge to give him a new tent my oldest son bought and an old pair of my work boots that still had a few miles left in them. Elijah and I dressed a freshly showered man on a Sunday morning when he was in no condition to dress himself. These are all stories that I will no doubt tell in time, but this post is about feet.
This past Sunday, we had our homeless friends over to our house for lunch. There were about 30 of them and we had a great afternoon. This is something that we try to do once a month. We ate pasta with sausage and cream sauce, focaccia bread, and a fantastic salad followed by Esther's homemade Raffaello cake and/or her pound cake with fresh berries and lemon curd. We sat in the yard next to a beautiful pond and told stories and laughed until our sides hurt. It was a wonderful afternoon with people we love and for us, it is just what we do. We love to have people in our home, we love to feed them, and we love to make them feel loved. Some would consider having 30 guests over for dinner a challenge, and having 30 people from off the grid over to your house crazy. For me, the only hard part was the foot thing.
At church, before any of this wonderful afternoon had an opportunity to begin, my friend Whiskey, who was in rather bad shape due to the fact that the police impounded his tent and backpack and left him to sleep uncovered in the rain, decided to exchange his old, beat-up, pair of boots, for a new, donated pair in the middle of the worship service. A gentleman who hasn't been going to the church for long, helped Whiskey put the new boots on as he noticed that Whiskey was struggling to do so on his own. Immediately after getting the boots on, Whiskey remembered that he hadn't changed his wet socks for dry ones. Being a veteran at sleeping in the rain, he knew the value of getting his feet dry as soon as possible. Whiskey removed the new boots and then pulled off his wet, dirty socks. I asked him what he was doing and he carefully whispered to me that he needed dry socks. Jim, the guy who, along with his wife, brings these members of our church to worship with us every week, found some socks for Whiskey and I took them into the sanctuary where my pastor, Tim, was preaching. This is when the problem hit me. Whiskey was going to need help getting these socks on and I don't do feet.
For the 21 years that Esther and I have been together, I have told her that I love her from the ankles up. She is perfect and there is nothing particularly wrong with her feet, other than the fact that they are feet and I don't like feet. I'm not even fond of my own feet. I do happen to like baby feet, but only for the first year. After that, they are real feet and therefore nasty. If I stay clear of my wife's feet and the feet of my 18 month-old children, I am not getting anywhere near the wet, dirty, size 14 feet of my friend who probably hasn't had a bath in a few weeks. I simply am not capable of that. Fortunately, God is. Swallowing my considerable pride, submitting my foot phobias to Jesus, and praying hard that my face not betray my disgust, I dropped to my knees and covered my friend's naked, vulnerable feet. I laced up his new boots and carried his wet socks to the laundry bag. I washed my hands with water hot enough to burn me and dunked them in hand-sanitizer, not because Whiskey is dirty, but because I have a foot thing.
We can't judge another person's sacrifice. Sometimes a mite is a fortune and a fortune is a mite. Some of the people that I am church with are taking up their cross by simply choosing to fellowship at Redemption Church My heroes, Jim and Jennifer's crosses makes mine look embarrassingly easy. Many who wouldn't want these guys in their homes, wouldn't have thought twice about changing Whiskey's socks. What comes naturally to you is a cross to me, as your cross may be what I enjoy. What is important is that we each take up our own cross and follow Him. Your neighbor's cross is not yours. You will have plenty to keep you busy right there on your own back. I learned this Sunday that I need Jesus to help me carry mine. There are things that I can only do in His strength. This definitely includes feet.
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