Reflections on Presidents Day

     It’s impossible for me to generate much enthusiasm for our presidents this year, having learned from writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) and Randall Robinson (The Debt) how many of them have contributed to the plundering of African Americans (a story I’m embarrassed to have not learned long ago), but when it comes to certain groups being excluded from the full protections and benefits of citizenship it seems to me the really colossal failure lies with the church. Unbelievers are only being true to their creed when they win at all costs, when they step on other people to get to the top. They don’t expect Anyone to provide for them. For them, it’s every person for themselves. The church claims to be different, but where is the evidence? Western Christians simply amass wealth against the uncertainties of the future, living a life of fear, just like everyone else. The first thing we ought to do is take some of that wealth and buy groceries, and begin having dinner with the downtrodden and the marginalized. I don’t mean serving them dinner! That only maintains the clear delineation between the haves and the have-nots, makes the haves feel better and deepens the resignation of the have-nots. I mean sitting down with them, looking them in the eye and listening to their stories. When I have dinner with you and learn your name and the names of your children and what they’re studying in school, your welfare ceases to be a matter of indifference to me. I become aware of what has been true all along: you cannot suffer without me also suffering; you cannot benefit without me also benefiting. My well-being is integrally connected to yours. What marginalized people need is not money or food, it’s exactly the same thing all of us need to confront the exigencies of life: the personal resources – like courage, support and opportunity – that come from friendships with people who are integrated into the community. This is the work of the church!*

     I worked 3^rd shift last Saturday at Carriage Town Ministries, an emergency shelter, so I was there when the men got up. At breakfast a resident said the 2^nd-best thing anyone’s ever said to me:** “I love me again,” he proclaimed. “You guys have shown me the light.” I exalted. That’s the goal: to show people their reflection in light of God’s word, their reflection as the image and the beloved of God. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people (You’re chosen if you’ll just hearken unto the Shepherd’s voice (John 10:3)), holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12).

      *This is what Serve the City has been doing in Lisbon, Portugal, and other European cities, since 2010. The City of Lisbon said years ago that it changed the way they deal with homeless people. (Video)

     **The best thing anyone’s ever said to me wasn’t actually said to me, it was said to my son-in-law when I happened to be over at his house: My daughter was modelling for him a new blouse she had bought for herself, wanting his opinion. “Did you show your father? What does he think?” he asked.
     “He’s my daddy,” she explained, in a tone indicating there was no sense asking. “He thinks I’m beautiful."
     Exactly.

Chickadees

     Last September I moved from South House to a house that belongs to my church, Joy Tabernacle, and is located two doors north of the church building. I share the house with four other men from the church and I rent a small – 10 feet x 11 feet – room. Like a good German, I’ve engineered the space for efficiency. There’s a loft bed; I think of it as an upstairs bedroom. Beneath the bed there’s a library, consisting of desk, chair, file cabinet and book shelves. The library is separated from the kitchen by a curtain my mother made me. Another curtain separates the kitchen from the dressing room/closet. Beneath the window sits a tiny round glass table and a chair. Here I take my meals.  

Outside the window chickadees light on the neighbor’s bushes as if to cheer, amuse and keep me company. Dozens of them. The other morning, sitting down to coffee, I was disappointed to find them missing, but within seconds the miniature maelstrom fluttered in, as if delayed by air traffic. They seem to respond to my movements. This afternoon I went over to the window to see if they were there. At first, it appeared they were not, but then they slowly emerged, blinking, from the bushes’ leafless interior. Oddly, they all faced forward, like a legion of tiny soldiers presenting arms, in little grey helmets with black visors and filigree chain mail bibs. I counted twenty-seven. We stood facing each other, rather than giving each other the side-eye, as we usually do, though presumably this meant they weren’t looking at me at all. They reminded me of my students, who sometimes appear attentive though their minds are far away. Other times, they appear distracted while gauging every move. Why attend to chickadees? “Nothing touches your life but it is the LORD God Himself speaking to you,” claims Oswald Chambers. “Upon the head of the righteous [Christ is our righteousness], blessings rain down,” says Solomon. Chickadees are a blessing.

     People ask me why I’m in Flint. The answer, first of all, is to be within chore-distance of my parents, who live 60 minutes away in Midland. Secondly, according to scripture, there’s much to be learned from the downtrodden (for example, Proverbs 28:11, Luke 6:20-21) and much to be gained in their service (Proverbs 19:17).

     People ask me how my parents are doing. They’re 82 and have been married 62 years. Last week, rather than enjoying our standing Tuesday dinner date at their place, we went to their church, St. John’s Episcopal in Midland, for their pancake supper. Afterwards, on our way back to their home, we all agreed the pancakes had been very tasty. “Yes,” opined my mother, “but all that frying makes your clothes smell.”

     “Well I would say to you,” returned my father, who moves with the speed of an energetic snail, “as soon as you walk in the house, throw off all your clothes.”

Small town

            You know you’re in a small town when the lady at the Secretary of State’s office who sent you off to get a driver’s test interrupts her conversation with another client to ask, with arms spread wide, “Did we pass?!” But that wasn’t the fun part. The fun part was the driver’s test itself. The third party with whom I happened to have scheduled my test, taken “at random”¨* from a list of twelve testing companies provided by the Secretary of State, turned out to be a Christian. My car overheated during the test, which might have brought my chances of getting a driver’s license to an end for the day, but she loaned me hers. Before we parted there had been crying and praying and rejoicing over what God has done and what He is going to do. Will you please pray, too, for the Physicists’ mom, that God would tune her heart to be in perfect concert with His own? Thanks.

Drex and me Gangnam style

            In another heart-stopping meeting this week, a pastor in northern Flint, where things are most difficult, with whom we were discussing Under One rooF (UFO), said UFO “is where God has brought me.” He said we’ll have to use houses, of which there is an abundance, rather than one big building, but that we’ll “ring the dinner bell” whenever it’s time to get together. Glory! What we need now is an existing American nonprofit to take Under One rooF under its wing, the way the Fundação Bomfim took Serve the City Lisbon under its wing back in 2010. Would you please ask God to find us one? 

            Finally, for this week, my son, Drex, turns 21 August 30, and is due to arrive at Detroit Metropolitan Airport the following day for a long week here in Michigan with his family. It will be the first time I’ve seen him since 2013. He’ll see other relatives he hasn’t seen since long, long before that. Please pray his trip is a great blessing to everyone involved and that he flies back to Seattle September 9^th with his emotional tank overflowing. Thanks again.

*The quotation marks are a reference to Proverbs 16:33: “We toss the coin, but it is the Lord who controls its decision." In other words, there's no such thing as "at random.”  

You're hired

     Carriage Town Ministries offered me a job today, pending a background and drug check. I'm excited about it. Thanks for praying!

Honey bees used to be part of the CTM community, and people miss them.

     I'll be working as a shift supervisor from 4pm to midnight. Most shifts are likely to include a couple of quiet hours that may be devoted to developing other ministries, which might include beekeeping, adult literacy and of course, the much needed Portuguese bakery.

Job description

If a tree stands in the forest, and there's no one there to appreciate it, is it still beautiful?

Clearly not, if indeed, as everyone says, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Appreciation is what we bring to the table.

"One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple." Psalm 27:4

Toledo

I confessed to the teacher of our Sunday school class that’s studying Beauty, the invisible embrace, by John O’Donohue, that I would be helped by a definition. What is beauty? What are we talking about? One thing John O’Donohue says is that beauty is ennobling. I think that’s an important part of it. When I recognize beauty it seems to give me greater value. As if the simple fact of my coexistence with beauty increases my own worth. It’s enough to put a person constantly on the look out.

Not far away

           I celebrated my one month anniversary in Flint yesterday. One of the nice things about being here has been the opportunities to see people I haven’t seen for a long time. Today I drove south after church and intercepted my Goddaughter and her family in Toledo, on their way home to Virginia after visiting colleges around Chicago. Last time we got together she was learning to read. Now she reads Latin. Being together is good medicine. It’s life-giving.

On the way home from Toledo I thought about the tender words of Jesus to those who are tempted to worry, the way I am, now that bills are coming due and I’m still not working. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” My Heavenly Father hasn’t forgotten me. He knows what I need. It was nice to rest in His assurance as I drove. Shortly after I arrived home I received an email from Carriage Town Ministries asking me to come in tomorrow morning to discuss a possible role for me there. It was very kind of God to arrange it. Would you please pray that meeting goes well?

Beautiful

   

     I spent a couple of evenings this week training at Carriage Town Ministries for the position of Shift Supervisor, the person who makes sure residents and guests get where they need to be when they need to be there, and attends to various other details. It has not led to a job offer yet, but I’m hopeful it will. Carriage Town is a hub of Christian Ministry and activity and would be an ideal base for integration into the community here, I think. Would you please continue to ask God to direct me with respect to my employment?

     When one is trying to integrate into the Christian community in a new town, Sunday can be a challenge. There are about half a dozen places I’d like to be Sunday morning. I had a plan, until I found out the Sunday school class my landlord teaches and a housemate attends was starting a study on Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, a book by John O’Donohue. Beauty has been a prominent theme in my conversations with God over the last several years, so I knew immediately I had to attend the class. What is beauty and how does it factor into God’s economy? Is it reasonable to assume it’s pretty important to Him, since He has made so much of it? What does it do for us, what part does it play in our well-being? Whatever else it is or does, it gives me pleasure, so I’m motivated to understand it as well as possible, in hopes of getting more of it into my life.
     John O’Donohue says, “When we say from our heart to someone: ‘You are beautiful,’ it is more than a statement or platitude, it is a recognition and invocation of the dignity, grandeur and grace of their spirit.” (p.15)

   

     Have a beautiful week. Thank you for your prayers.

Bread and distance

     Those who came by here last week will recall that after God provided me with communication and transportation, He and I had turned our collective Attention to accommodation, and that I had what looked like a promising possible place to live (though I also had a backup). The promising possibility was South House,
a home on the southwest edge of downtown Flint, maintained by a Christian couple for people God brings to them, and it is from South House that I write. The main problem at South House is deciding where to perch for reading or writing or lunch, whether in the sun-soaked dining room, as I did today, or in one of the living room’s ample seats, or on the enclosed patio, or the sunny terrace surrounded by sumptuous flower pots, or in the swinging love seat beneath the trees in the shady backyard, or in the privacy of my own room, where I must choose between desk, sofa, lazy-boy and bed. When you throw in the company of my three housemates (though they may go unseen for days) the contrast with my monkish dwelling in Lisbon is stark. I’ll adjust.

     The last item on my Flint Arrival To-do List is to find employment, and towards that end I’ve been networking aggressively, meeting lots of helpful, prayerful people who have been very encouraging. The big question for me at this point is whether UnderOne rooF (UFO), the project we are hoping to launch in Lisbon, will be my full-time job here, or just something I work on in my spare time. Would you please ask God to make it clear to me what He’d like me to do?
     Speaking of prayer, I’ve spent time this week with a little healing prayer group from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Flint. Along with praying for lots of other people, they anointed me with oil, laid hands on me, and prayed for me, too (twice). I think God loves to demonstrate His power and love in response to the prayers of His kids, and I don’t think we ask Him nearly enough. I hope to continue to be involved with this little group. Please let me know how we can pray for you, and you see if it doesn’t make a difference in your life!
     One of the most striking things about Flint is the vast distances. In Lisbon I walk to the corner grocer for bread and greet a handful of neighbors on the way. To get anywhere here I get in my car, my private bubble, and drive for miles and miles. The car is just the thing to keep those pesky neighbors from bothering me. This has profound effects. It has often been observed that we’re different in our cars, but have you noticed the resemblance between who you are in your car and Donald Trump? Is your SUV a rolling wall along your border with Mexico?
     Speaking of bread, we knew about the Flint Water Crisis, we knew it’s a food desert, where fresh produce is scarce and expensive, but what we didn’t know is there’s no bread! What is sold as bread is a spongy bread-like product baked during the Bush administration. Nobody’s baking fresh bread. I emailed A Padaria Portuguesa (The Portuguese Bakery) a company that’s putting cute little coffee shop bakeries on every block in Lisbon, each with the signature bicycle with basket, but they said they’re not ready to expand to Flint. Would it be cheaper to fly Flintstones to Lisbon for bakery training, or to fly Alfacinhos (Little Lettuces, natives of Lisbon) who bake, here?