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.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
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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