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.