Back of the Knees

Some strange things have been happening to me on the public transportation lately. As background, now that I'm commuting to Hyde Park, on the far south side of Chicago, I'm now in transit for 15 to 30 minutes longer than I was going to work on the west side. I don't mind it. But I get a lot of weird looks from folks when I tell them that I don't drive to school. It gives me a chance to read and to knit. Wow, man, what a bummer.

So, anyway, this morning the train stopped with such sudden force that the woman standing next to me (whose bangs I always covet) completely lost her balance and fell into the laps of two men seated on the inward facing bench. She was my age and hale, so no one felt any guilt that she was standing in the first place but her apparently physical strength made her utter vulnerability to physics seem all that more surreal.

Then, as my bus was pulling away on State St., I looked out the window to see 7 or 8 kilted bagpipers, standing at the crosswalk with their coffees and sunglasses, waiting for the light to change. As we moved forward, I saw that they were accompanied by 3 Chicago policemen that were also carrying bagpipes and from the waist up, wore the standard police uniform. However, from the waist down, they wore special police kilts. That's right, I said police kilts. They were navy blue and pleated just like regular kilts. They were worn with special police knee-high socks with the little ribbons and feathers stuck in the top hem pointing down to their feet, just like the regular bagpipers always have. Seeing the back of a classic Chicago cop's knees was even more surreal than watching my neighbor suddenly decide that those two men were so attractive, she couldn't stay away any longer.

Last night, a compact but obviously powerful man boarded the train wearing military-style black pants and boots, black gloves that buttoned at the wrist, a red beret and a white t-shirt with red lettering that said, "Guardian Angel." As the train moved, he stood by the doors, but held on with both hands gripping different poles of straps so as to take up as much space as possible. He had a well-trimmed goatee and the rest of his face was pale, smooth and slightly foreign-looking. It was an all-around attractive image in a man-in-uniform kind of way. The first time he met my eyes, I had not seen his t-shirt and so I looked away in a way that probably didn't disguise that I had been looking at him, but probably wasn't offensive either. Then, I got a look at his t-shirt and felt bad that he might feel rejected in his role as protector. The next time his head swiveled in my direction, I smiled. At the stop after the stop where he got on, he went through the adjoining doors into the next car. Once more in my commute, he got on my car again, but I was at a good part in my book, so lost my desire to engage him. I've never seena "Guardian Angel" on the El before but I felt a little warm feeling that someone was out there looking out for me. It made me feel a little special.

The final surreality of my recent public transportation career is a little creepier and Mom, you can stop reading now if you want to. On the train the other afternoon, the man next to me pretended to fall asleep and proceeded to lightly, very lightly run his finger along the underside of my thigh that was exposed from the edge of the seat to my knee. Because I thought he was asleep, because I was reading, because he had strategically placed his bag to disguise the fact that his hand was even down there and because who ever really expects the guy next to her to be feeling her up?, it took me a minute or two to identify what was going on. Even then, I wasn't sure and didn't want to make a fuss unnecessarily, thinking maybe it was the foot of the person behind me accidentally coming up from under the seat. It moved so that I no part of my body was touching his for the last stretch of time before my stop, I thought I felt it again, but still wasn't sure when the train pulled up to my stop. I said "Excuse me," to wake him (which happens all the time) but had to say it twice (which doesn't) and he woke up with this incredibly feigned startlement: "Oh, oh, I'm sorry." At that point, my suspicions were confirmed and I was very glad to get off the train.

School is going extremely well and I seem to be at the core a "group" of friends, which has never in my life happened. I've got a couple of other things that I want to share with you, but for now, the image of Chicago's finest in kilts moved itself to the forefront of stories that I wanted to tell you.

Marquita on the train

Her mother was gigantic and glared at me after she kicked my foot while boarding the bus. Waiting for the train, Marquita sat next to me on the bench. She was about 8 years old and as I sat there knitting, I realized that she smelled bad. Not horrible to the point of repelling but she definitely hadn't showered in a couple of days. She asked me about my knitting. I did not realize at that point who her mother was since her mother was standing all the way on the other side of the platform; I thought she was traveling alone. I answered her question about what I was making and when she asked about the 5 sticks I was using, I explained about knitting in a circle, also pointing out how a rectangle (like most people knit) can easily be made into a circle. She asked me who had taught me to knit and I told her that my grandmother had when I was her age but then I forgot how until recently and then I learned from a book and the internet.

When the train pulled up, I gathered up my stuff and got on. She and her mother got on the same car and even though it was totally empty except for us, her mother moved to the opposite side of the car and Marquita sat right next to me. I was vibrantly aware of the fact that it was possible that the adults in her life don't engage her questions with satsfying answers, if her mother's behavior was any indicator. We've all seen and been adults who answer questions with, "Why do you need to know that?" "I'll tell you when you're older." "Stop bothering me." "Pay attention to your food." At best, this is because the adults don't know the answer and don't realize that out-loud speculation of what the answer could be is just as valuable for the development of kids. At worst, the kids are unwanted annoyances in the adults' life.

Engaging didn't feel like a burden, but it certainly felt like a responsibility. Nothing in my life at that moment was more important than making this little neglected girl feel valued. Even the fact that I'm not usually very good at interacting with kids this age. Even the fact that I would always rather put my nose in my book on the train to make the time go by faster.

So, I began asking her questions. How was the start of school? Did she like her teacher? I didn't ask what her name was at first because I didn't want her mother to feel like I was being inappropriate. However, her mother never looked at us for the entire 45 minute trip.

We talked about all sorts of things. She asked me what stop I was getting off at and figured out the implications of who was going to get off the train first. Since she was getting off at Pulaski, we talked a little about Casmir Pulaski and how kids in Chicago are the only kids in the country who get a day off from school to honor him since we have so many people that live here that used to live in Poland. She was going to the public aid office with her mother. It was 1:00 in the afternoon and she told me that her mother had pulled her out of school early in order to go to the public aid office. My heart sank when she told me this. When I told her that I was going to pick up my car, she told me her mother was about to buy a car because she finally took lessons, so the car was free. I didn't want to ask a follow-up question for fear of what the answer would be. Full of responsiblity, I told her that even though I have a car, I ride the train because it's better for the environment. She asked if she could try knitting. I let her practice and she did passably well for a kid with a kid's fine motor skills. I used the cadence my grandma used. Over, under, around and through. When we passed by a construction site, I asked ehr what she thought was beng built there. She asnwered with confidence, "an office building with papers and stuff." So, I asked her what other kinds of things went in an office building. Between the two of us, we came up with papers, chairs, file cabinets, deskes [sic], computers, pencils, and pens. Then, she asked me if I could speak Spanish. I expressed regret that I hadn't learned when I was her age because it was easier to learn other languages when you're younger. Always feeling the responsibility to be the turning point in this kid's life, right? Fortunately, I snapped out of it enough to ask her if she knew Spanish. Her face lit up and turned shy in the smae moment, so I prompted her to ola me and to count. I learned that she and I are both the only girls in our families. She has 4 brothers; I have 3. I learned my first year teaching African American kids that they were always amazed to look at my family pictures and notice that my older brothers don't look like me, my younger brother or my dad. They had never considered that white families might have half-siblings in them. (Although technically, my brothers are a quarter Philipino, so they're not all white. I used to get street cred from my students for that, too.) So, feeling the responsiblity for showing this girl that our races were not all that different, I confided in her about my brothers. It took her a minute to process, but she responded in the same way my students had. She asked to try my knitting again and I let her. She wanted my phone number so that I could keep teaching her. I explained that I didn't live in her neighborhood but I bet that one of the old ladies that live by her would know how. I asked if she went to church to see if there would be old ladies there to direct her to and her facial expression of disappointment that she had to tell me she didn't, with her eyes flicking toward her mother broke my heart a little more.

Then, she asked me for change.

In the moment, I played it off as funny, asking in mock indignation, "Now, why would I give you change?" She smiled, thought about and said, "I don't know. So, I can get something for myself?" Later, when I told this story to my mother, I began sobbing as soon as I described the way she smelled. As my mother came over to where I was sitting and held me, the climax of episode came when I told her about the change.

I grieve powerfully that this little girl has grown up in a world - my world - that taught her to beg simply out of habit. How will she ever regain dignity that she never had?

Because dignity is where it all starts. Without believing that we are worth something better, we will never attempt to obtain something better for ourselves. For all her inquisitiveness and imagination, the only thing Marquita is being taught is dependence. That is a poverty that no amount of stuff can redeem.

Now, I have had a tough couple of weeks. I quit my job, started school, picked up my car from the shop 4 times only to take it back again 4 times, helped my best friend move away from our neighborhood, got a new roommate, and the man I've been seeing and I broke up our relationship. I am heartbroken and liminal and very, very tender. Maybe if I met Marquita in another week of my life, she wouldn't affect me like this. Maybe if I were still working in non-profit administration, I would simply see her as another recipient of the work I was doing and so I would see her need as necessary to my ability to fulfill Christ's commandment to clothe the naked and visit the prisoner. But this week, all I can do is grieve for her and do my best to give her 45 minutes of sunshine.

At church tonight, we sang Taize vespers and in the repetition of one of the prayers, I found resonance in this poetry:

By night we hasten in darkness to seek for the living water.
Only our thirst lights us onwards.
Only our thirst lights us onwards.

Notice that I said that I found resonance in the poetry, not inspiration. It is the middle of the night for me right now. The only thing that keeps me moving forward is my thirst for something better. Otherwise, I would take muchmuch easier paths or sleep through the darkness by being emotionally lazy. So, I suppose I thank God for my thirst. I am happier every time I come across a stream and I can only find new streams by continuing to hasten onward.

My prayer is that Marquita keeps feeling the thirst that caused her to be bold by sitting down next to a stranger and asking for love. I pray that she does not sleep through the night, sinking into apathy, drugs, despair, unhealthy sex, bitterness, or dysfunctional relationships to mask her thirst. Like the woman at the well, I hope Jesus shows up at sometime in her life, in some guise, and tells her the truth about herself so that she feels valuable for more than just 45 minutes. I hope she continues to seek for living water. She will find it even in the darkness if she lets her thirst guide her. At least, I hope that's true, for both hers and my sake.

An Emerging Manifesto of Hope

I have just finished reading An Emerging Manifesto of Hope, which is a compilation of essays by a variety of people engaged in trying to create a new kind of church. For instance, my pastor wrote the third chapter. One of the beautiful things about the emerging church is that one truth that ties most of us together is that following God in the context of the current culture is less about everyone agreeing about what is "right" and more about having room to ask questions and to hear God's voice for ourselves. God is so big that s/he doesn't fit into anyone's box, right? So, all of these different essays create an overview of how people are thinking about church, rather than a core set of doctrines. Because of that, I found that some authors resonated with me more than others. Some topics seemed more important than others. I think it's the kind of book that everyone who reads it will come away remembering different ideas. With that in mind, I typed out the passages in the book that I underlined as particularly true. You know, those passages that - when you read them - make you think, "Damn, there is no way that I could ever say it better than that." Also, they make you think sit back in your chair with a little bit more peace in your chest because you realize that you're not the only one who has had that same experience. That, by the way, is my definition of art. Objects of creation that make us feel less alone because we know through them that some parts of human nature are universal.

So, here are the parts of the book that I consider art. I'm sure that if I read it again years from now, there would be different parts that spoke particularly to me. I'm also sure that the recurring themes in these quotes will be revealing regarding who I am and what I think is important. I'd love to get some thoughts in the comments about how these ideas affected you. Choose one quote and write a couple of sentences regarding your response. Agree? Disagree? Laugh? Cry? Why?

Mark Scandrette, "Growing Pains: The Messy and Fertile Process of Becoming"

I give you this unsolicited advice. Make your own life. Host your own emergence. Stop reading so many books and blogs. Start your own conversations, and be a caring friend. The most important conversations happen between people who have the potential to live out their story together.

Heather Kirk-Davidoff, "Meeting Jesus at the Bar: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Evangelism"

Relational evangelism is not just a change in tactic. It is a change in the reson we engage in evangelism, shifting the focus from recruitment to the cultivation of relationships that are an end in themselves, indispecsable to our spiritual journeys.

If we took these experiences seriously, we would soon realize that developing and tending to relationships are perhaps the key spiritual disciplines of many adults in their twenties and thirties (and often beyond). While we may also pray and read Scripture regularly, while we may chant with monks or do yoga or go on a silent retreat, our relationships with others give us the most insight into who God is and where God is leading us. . . And it is often through learning to love each other that we find ourselves opening to God in new and deeper ways.

Nanette Sawyer, "What Would Huckleberry Do? A Relational Ethic as the Jesus Way"

Thinking back on that pivotal interaction with my childhood minister, I believe the whole conversation missed the mark in a big way. He was defining Christian identity as assent to a list of certain beliefs, and he was defining Christian community as those people who concur with those beliefs. This didn't leave any room for questions, doubts, or growth in faith. It made community acceptance of each other completely conditional on having already arrived at a particular intellectual destination. In asking me if I was a Christian, and accepting my preteen answer, he essentially told me that I wasn't part of the community. I wasn't in; I was out. And so I found myself spiritually homeless.

I like to call it paradoxology - the glory of paradox, paradox-doxology - which takes us somewhere we wouldn't be capable of going if we thought we had everything all wrapped up, if we thought we had attained full comprehension. The commitment to embracing the paradox and resisting the impulse to categorize people (ourselves included) is one of the ways we follow Jesus into that larger mysterious reality of light and love.

If we can come together and eat and live and serve together, then we will be changed.

Carla Barnhill, "The Postmodern Parent: Shifting Paradigms for the Ultimate Act of Re-Creation"

Indeed, parenting is about more than raising children. It is about investing in our hopes for the world. It is about joining in with our Creator in the ultimate act of re-creation. It is about pointing our children toward the work God has for them and giving them the resources to do it. It is about celebrating the goodness of life with God, a life that looks more like the kingdom with every generation.

Sherry and Geoff Maddock, "An Ever-Renewed Adventured of Faith: Notes From a Community"

Paul reminds the church at Philippi that they must work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12 NIV). The language he uses here is plural. In the South we might use the word "Y'all" to get the same effect - "work out y'all's salvation." It is our contention that salvation is more than personal renewal; it is at best a collective experience.

We believe that when we live in missional ways, we discover God most intimately where we encounter other kinds of intimacy.

Many of us had to weed out the desire to wear exhaustion and busyness as badges of honor; somehow we imagined that these proved our commitment.

Thomas Malcolm Olson, "Jailhouse Faith: A Community of Jesus in an Unlikely Place"

Each time I attend, I'm struck by the posture of humility and vulnerability people willingly adopt with one another. It's contagious. There's an attitude of "I don't have it all figured out and I need your help," which seems like good theology to me. Recovery groups are the easiest, most natural way people can "bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2 NASB). The dynamic of the group becomes the catalyst for living faithful lives.

Every person needs one safe place where he or she is able to stop pretending, a place of ruthless honesty and unconditional love where no one is allowed to fly underneath the radar.

Adam Walker Cleveland, "Presbymergent: The Story of One Mainliner's Quest to Be a Loyal Radical"

One of the things I appreciate most about these friendships is the unspoken understanding that it is acceptable to question, critique and deconstruct much of what we think and believe.

Brian D. McLaren, "Church Emerging: Or Why I Still Use the Word Postmodern but with Mixed Feelings"

We are rich in resources gained at the expense of the colonized (money, technology, time, freedom) that can be used to serve them and to foster a more equitable and collaborative future.

Will Samson, "The End of Reinvention: Mission Beyond Market Adoption Cycles"

Even when explaining a very real event, such as a car crash, each person interprets the phenomenon through his or her own lens. How much more do we interpret God, a deeply metaphysical entity, through our own lenses?

It is helpful to have a common understanding of belief to which all who claim to be Christians can subscribe. But it also may be true that councils like that of Nicea set a precendent for the notion that people can be a part of the story of God through their belief in Jesus, regardless of how they act.

Individual conversion is vital and small-group involvement and church attendance are good things, but perhaps these metrics tend to be emphasized as measurements of the health of the church because they are easier to evaluate than the hard work of asking if the people who are following God in the way of Jesus are, in fact, becoming more and more conformed to the way of Jesus.

Barry Taylor, "Converting Christianity: The End and Beginning of Faith"

One thing that it does signify, almost universally, is the rejection of traditional faiths as a primary source of connection to the divine. I would argue that traditional faiths are no longer the first resource that people go to for developing and nurturing their spiritual lives. Instead, traditional faiths function more as secondary archives from which new spiritual permutations are created.

The future of faith does not lie in the declaration of certainties, but in the living out of uncertainty.

This is not a slide into relativism but a commitment to nondogmatic specificity. We can tell the gospel story without resorting to competition, exclusivism or elitism.

The concerns of religion are different from those of faith. Religion is concerned with right belief, faith with believing in the right way. This was somethng that Jesus confronted continually in his encounters with the Pharisees.

For too long we have gone out into the world to tell people what we think they ought to know rather than seeking to discover what they are interested in and where they are looking for answers.

Sally Morgenthaler, "Leadership in a Flattened World: Grassroots Culture and the Demise of the CEO Model"

. . . There is no irony here. Machine parts don't have minds or muscles to flex. They don't contribute to the process or innovate improvements. Machine parts simply do their job, which is, of course, to keep the machine functioning.
The mechanical paradigm or organization largely explains why modern church leaders are trained as CEOs, not shepherds. Sheep have their own ideas of what, where, and when they want to eat. They may not want to lie down by quiet water and go to sleep at eight. They just might want to check out the watercress down by the streambed. Or they might want to head out over the next ridge and see if there are any other flocks out there. Conveniently, machine parts don't get ideas. The just get to work, and they work according to specification.
Church members who don't comprehend this three-decade shift in leadership paradigms are frustrated that their CEO pastor is so self-absorbed. They were loking for a shepherd - albeit one with a big name and a big flock. Instead, they ended up with a "my-way-or-the-highway" autocrat - a top-down aficionado whose ecclesiastical machine whirs only to the sound of his own voice and functions tightly tightly within the parameters of his own limited vision.

Samir Selmanovic, "The Sweet Problem of Inclusiveness: Finding Our God in the Other"

This choice between accepting the name of Christ and being Christlike has been placed before millions of people in human history and today.

It is worth being reminded that Christ never proclaimed, "Christianity is here. Join it." But Christ did insist, "The kingdom of God is here. Enter it."

In the Old Testament, God repeatedly rebuked his followers for treating him as a manageable idol, someone they could actually avoid through the means of religion. Christians can conceive of things like money, sex, and power being idols. But the Christian religion itself being an idol? Certainly, if we proclaim that Chritianity itself is immune from idolatry, then we have come to believe that, finally, God has become "contained" by Christianity.

The question begs to be asked: would God who gives enough revelation for people to be judged but not enough revelation to be saved be a God worth worshipping? Never!

Dwight J. Friesen, "Orthoparadoxy: Emerging Hope for Embracing Difference"

Jesus did not announce ideas or call people to certain beliefs as much as he invited people to follow him into a way of being in the world.

The hope is not to defeat, debate, condemn, or even convert the other; rather the hope is to live reconciled with the other, not avoiding differences but seeing them as an expression of the largeness and diverse beauty of God.

Anyone with access to the internet, television, radio, and newspapers encounters more information than has been availalbe at any other time in human history, but we risk ignorance because we tend to receive information passively, relying more on experts than on our own experiences to make sense of what we take in. Talking with others is a way out of this bind.

Conversations matter because the people with whom we converse matter; thus, conversations offer a human face - created in the image of God - to what otherwise might be reduced to a abstract idea. This kind of engagement is less about knowledge and more about wisdom.

Orthoparadox theologians seek not to defend their claims as much as present the fullness of their convictions and beliefs as an act of service.

Developing a life of orthoparadoxy, which fosters relationships by allowing strong conviction to remain in dialogue and surrenders the will to exclude on the basis of those same convictions, may sound impossible. Let there beno doubt, seeing connections where we once saw difference will require nothing less than divine intervention; may it be so.

Dan Kimball, "Humble Theology: Re-exploring Doctrine While Holding On to Truth"

Yes, we have the Spirit to guide us, but even so, there are many godly, wonderful, Spirit-filled people who sincerely study and pray and ask the Spirit to guide them, yet they come to different conclusions.

Chris Erdman, "Digging up the Past: Karl Barth (the Reformed Giant) as Friend to the Emerging Church"

I wonder if that's not what many of us sense and hope for - the freedom of God and the church from the ideological captivities that make God a commodity to be bought and sold, and the church an institution that gobbles up resources, panders to cultural whims, and resists the renewing, emerging winds that feel like life to us.

Rodolpho Carrasco, "A Pund of Social Justice: Beyond Fightig for a Just Cause"

Perhaps justice, in the end, is giving a person everything that God wants for him or her to have, not just material or social goods but the quiet assurance that, "Before you were born, I knew you - and loved you. I still do."

Deborah and Ken Loyd, "Our Report Card in the Year 2057: A Reflection on Women's Rights, Poverty and Oppression"

We would like to suggest that homogeneity is the curse, rather than the poverty.

Randy Woodley, "Restoring Honor in the Land: Why the Emerging Church Can't Dodge the Issue"

An understanding of shalom has been one of the most neglected concepts in the modern church. The rendering of this word as "peace" in most translations of the Scriptures is anemic and inadequate. One should not underestimate the importance of shalom, for without this base of understanding, it is impossible to understand God or humanity.

Doug Pagitt, "This is Just the Beginning: Living Our Great-Grandchildren's History"

If our grandchildren speak of our time as characterized by a cultural niche expression of faith specially formulated for Gen-whatever, we will have left them very little. No one is 2140 will need examples of trendy cultural tricks masquerading as missional innovation.

If our grandchildren are forced to speak of our day as a time filled with those who saw faith as the prized possession of the insider with member benefits, we will have failed. If we leave a version of the gospel that is ultimately for the benefit of the faithful and not the whole world, we have missed something. Our grandchildren must be able to say about us: "They did not see themselves as end users of the gospel. Faith was not value-added living, but life-giving to all the earth."

Well, there you have it. If you made it this far, I'd definitely love to hear what your response to my abridged version of the book is. What do these writers communicate about the emerging movement that I haven't written about yet? What was new to you or reinforced to you? Or like I said above, choose one quote, copy/paste it into the comment section and write a couple of sentences summarizing your response. Agree? Disagree? Laugh? Cry? Why?

Let's build a little community, shall we?

Lessons from Math Camp

I am in Math Camp right now and I really like the professor. He's a big math nerd who has found his niche. I love being in the presence of people who have found their niche. He's fastidious in his personal appearance and has my favorite kind of humor in a teacher. He also explains the basics in a very clear progression and responds well to the interaction and responses of the class.

Watching him teach, I formulated the following thoughts. Of course, because I was supposed to be simultaneously learning from him, I needed the folks in my small group to re-explain inequalities to me 20 minutes later.

The teacher of math has to be sensitive to the emotion of the room. So many people struggle with the math that a lesson can be stalled purely through frustration. Mentally, the class has put on the brakes to learning. The teacher believes that the solution will be found and this allows her to charge on ahead. The students' unbelief in his own abilities to solve the problem is actually the cause of the problem remaining unsolved. This is not the same as an actual lack of ability or a lack of a solution. The teach has both. The student has potential both. Only unbelief gets in the way.
The kicker is that brain research tells us that sometimes we need that still time for the brain to process new ideas and to let them connect to the foundation of knowledge that has already been accumulated. The ah-ha moment is only possible after the brain lies fallow for a little while. The best teachers recognize this paralyzed state in their students, and acknowledge its necessity by sitting down and giving them some time to process. Professor Boller did this.

So, if belief in math can be equivalent to the belief in God (and all of the different things that "God" can mean to people), the we need periods of unbelief in order for belief to occur. Unbelief, or even doubt don't negate God or our ability to discover God. It is simply a natural stage in the process of ultimately reaching spiritual enlightenment, which I sometimes call reconciliation with God.

Therefore, the "unbeliever" should not be seen as pitiable, like so many Christians do. These folks are actually growing closer to understanding. Rather, the people that should be pitied and "evangelized" are those people who know the solution and how to get there, but shirk the tasks involved in being teachers.

Cake, meet floor. Floor, meet cake.

On Friday, my co-workers threw me a party and said many nice things about me. According to the party, I am valued for my quirkiness, my passion for grammar, my enjoyment of wrestling, my idealism (in that I have ideals and stick to them) and my all-around good-nature. Pretty cool, huh.

They also got me a cake with my name on it. Although I'm sure I have, I don't remember a cake with my name on it before. When I looked at it closely, it became obvious that they had spelled my name, Rebecka, then gone back and carved out the K and replaced it with the proper redundant C. We're not certain what is in the lower right-hand corner, but it was posited that it might be a graduation scroll.

After the party, I was taking the cake to the front to share with the customers and it was like a slapstick movie, with my hands reaching out in futility to catch the confection that is traveling in slow motion and in a perfect arc. I could practically see the "Oooohhhh noooooooo!" coming out of my own rounded mouth.

It was awesome! I immediately fell to the floor in laughter.

If you have to go out, go out in style.

You never get a second chance

The best T-shirt to make a good first impression at grad school?

Meat is Murder
Tasty, Tasty Murder

Damn the Indians!

Ugh. No one told me that building community was going to require sacrifice of my good digestion.

The bathroom and I have been very intimate since about 3:00 this morning when I woke with a bubbling pain in my stomach.

We had potluck last night at my church and to be polite, I took a tablespoonful of what looked like curried potato salad.

Big mistake. Being polite is not worth this.

This is my second experience being unable to process Indian food. I'm sticking to naan from here on out when I don't have the option of good, old, boring, bland, American food.

Roommate?

So, my great roommate fell through at the very last minute, so I'm back to interviewing the randoms that respond to my craigslist ad. It's definitely an odd process. Plus, everyone wants to know right now if I'll take them. One guy showed up this morning from Alabama with his parents and the Uhaul. I felt bad for him because his previous arrangement fell through and I'm not sure that I'm doing what Jesus would do by turning him down but, you know, I wasn't ready to make a decision that fast and I think that a 24-year-old guy with no arm hair and stripey head hair takes more than 8 hours to get used to the idea of.

So, I have to share this response with you. I'm not sure what their selling but I hate to meet the sucker that falls for it. The email address registers as "John Micheal."

Hello,
Well am JANET am from United State,I am 25yrs of age and I want to know if we can be a roommate.I am a very humble and easy going lady. I do modelling and humanitarian work for a living, I love my work because it make me travelled alot, I was born in USA , but presently I moving in from Belgium, so all the payment arrangement is being take care of by my boss, I love swimming, and going to cinema house, I love to make people laugh, I bet it you will enjoy having me as your roommate, I am not married, no kids I love to enjoy the best of life. Am ok with the room and the deposit for the room and also, I will like to have the full name , address, city,state, zipcode, home phone,cell phone. so that i can get this across to my boss for quick payment for the deposit, becos is a busy man, he will be speaking on my behalf

looking forwards to read from you

Thanks

She does modeling AND humanitarian work? Really? Also, the image name was called Jenny2.jpeg.

Maybe this is my latent xenophobia flaring but something about this doesn't seem quite right. Are you with me, people?

My first meme

So, although I've been blogging at this site for just a few days more than 3 years and participating on the blogs of others, I've never been tagged by someone to continue a meme. There are many of you out there for whom my blog is the only blog you read. So, the word, "meme" probably seems weird to you. I wish I could define it but I can't. It's amorphous to me because the word has meaning to me outside of the blogosphere and I can't make that meaning connect to it's meaning to this sub-group of people: basically, it's a chain letter but with a topic that you write about on your blog.

So Julie tagged me for this meme which was begun by John Smulo.

The rules of the meme:

1. Apologize for three things that Christians have often got wrong. Your apologies should be directed towards those who don’t view themselves as part of the Christian community. Alternatively, apologize for things you personally have done wrong towards those outside of the church.
2. Post a comment at the originating post so others can keep track of the apologies.
3. Tag five people to participate in the meme.
4. If desired, send an email with the link to your blog post at the Christians Confess site, giving permission for your apologies to be added to the website.

So, I'm choosing the "alternatively" option of #1

Lorinda, I'm sorry for letting someone goad me into telling you that you were going to hell while we were hanging out on the girls' locker room, supposedly creating an aerobics routine to Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" and the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams."

To the number of people who kept parts of their life secret from me because they thought I would judge them and tell them it was wrong, I'm sorry. I probably would have.

To the kids in my Sunday School class whose asses I whupped in Bible trivia games, eat it. Actually, though, Christ knew his scripture and probably would have beat the whole class at Bible hangman, too. I think he might have been a little more gracious about it. Since most of you were dragged to church without getting a chance to discover a faith of your own, I think it's appropriate to apologize to you here, also.

And I tag -

Arloa
Dave
Erika
Nanette
and you, the Christian blurker

Thanks, Julie.

Go Gordon Brown!

Wow! Read the sentence below out loud. Gordon Brown is speaking to faith groups and NGOs at his visit to the UN.

Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire is given more support by the rest of us—businesses, citizens, and governments.

You gotta love a man with good rhetoric. That he has good content makes me want to just kiss his ugly little mug.

Thanks to Jim Wallis for pointing the speech out to me.

I've been at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, which was truly intense. Also, finding a roommate (whew, if you don't think humans are xenophobic by their nature, try screening 42 emails of people wanting to share a bathroom with you) and wrapping up here at work. Please forgive me if I don't write more often.

Here's mud in your eye

In the DR Congo, Jim, Tedde, Chuck, Arloa and I went to visit a woman who was HIV positive. World Vision assists her by providing ARVs, nutritious food and other help. When we arrived, we were welcomed inside a mud-brick house that was about 8ft by 12 ft. There was no running water or electricity and so the door was left open for light. To accept her hospitality, all of us were given a seat and she stood by the door, which was the only space left. Bedding was located on the other side of a curtain hanging from a string at the end of the room. We were able to ask her questions about her condition and what life was like. It was terribly awkward because none of us wanted this woman to feel like she was on display for the visitors and, at the same time, most humans having trouble breaking the ice even when they speak the same language and the gap between their classes is not quite as glaring. But she was gracious and willing to answer our questions. Although quiet, she was not guarded, and we began to loosen up. Her 3-year-old daughter stood with her the whole time. The mother held the comb she had been using to tie the girl's hair in little tufts, a hairstyle that was unique to the DR Congo out of all the countries we visited. We asked if we could pray for her and she allowed us. Arloa, the pastor in the group, laid hands on her and we prayed. While we conversed through a translator, many of the local children gathered at the doorway to get a glimpse inside. When I went to take their pictures, they held up their own hands, as if taking my picture. Once I got outside afterwards, I saw that many of them had made little clay cameras. I asked the translator to have them show me their cameras again so I could take a picture.

Before we had left her house, though, I asked her why she thought the staff members of World Vision helped her.
World Vision is very clear in its policy statements about the fact that they do not proselytize and that they serve all people in need, without discrimination and without requiring that do anything religious to receive that aid. They believe that when they serve simply because they are commanded to by Jesus, that is enough. Often, receivers of aid get curious about why someone would help them and ask. Only then do they talk about Christ. I like that about World Vision and I wanted to see how the reality of this played out in the field. She responded, "World Vision is caring, loving and compassionate."

John 9:1-7 says:

Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?" Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."

He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes, and said, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" (Siloam means "Sent"). The man went and washed—and saw.

I love the disciples because they are just like me: totally clueless most of the time. They just don't get it.

But they think they do.

They're so sure that they know what's going on that they don't ask open-ended questions. No simple, "Why is this man blind?" They are so shaped by their culture that they believe that the question is multiple-choice. Ha. Like God ever fit inside the boxes we create for him, even the ones that can be filled in with a number 2 pencil.

Christ ignores the two possibilities that the disciples hand him and presents a third option that has nothing to do with what they offered: This man is blind so that he may be healed and show the world the Glory of God.

I love the theories of community development. I read book after book about them, attend CCDA conferences, participate on community development blogs, and will talk at length with anyone that's willing about why the poor stay poor and what can be done to achieve equal opportunity for God's people. I'm starting grad school at the University of Chicago in the fall so that I can effect systemic change in this world, rather than simply applying band-aids. Plus, thinking about the cause-and-effect relationships of our world just feels good to me. Like scratching an itch or watching baseball or holding small babies. It's entertainment and joy, wrapped up into something (my head) that I carry around with me all the time anyway.

This makes me, at times, ask questions like the disciples: framed in such a way that Jesus will give me an answer that I expect, or at least, one that I can process. Throughout my trip in Africa, I was thinking about how the resources of the world got distributed so inequitibly and how I could be involved in the remedy. Basically, I was asking God whose sin was being punished by Africa's blindness, what societal sin caused the situation to arise that this woman, her husband and their 5 children should be suffering from AIDS.

I was also desperately trying to dispell my own bias that secretly believes that I am entitled to my wealth and privelige, that I somehow earned them and that this makes me better than people who have little.

In three of the four Gospels, Jesus asks the disciples, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who 'have it all' to enter God's kingdom?" He goes on to say that it is easier for a camel to fit through an eye of a needle than for people of privelige and wealth to enter God's kingdom.

This is a troubling verse. I know several good men that have spent the last 20 years trying to figure out how it applies to them. But I have recently begun reading several biblical scholars who believe that "God's kingdom" or "the Kingdom of Heaven" refers to our mortal life here on earth in addition to the afterlife. They believe that it describes the parts of this world and our lives that align with God's original plan for us. This means that the Kingdom of Heaven is anywhere people are in real community with one another, loving and taking care of each other, even in the midst of conflict that inevitably arises. People who have wealth and privelege usually don't have true community. I certainly fit that description, having spent the last several years of my life looking for it after not finding it in the drive-through suburban life I had been living. But time and time again, when I engage with "poor" people, they have what I lack. For their survival, they must know and cooperate with all of the people that live in their neighborhood, even those they don't particularly like. It is Christ's commandment to love our neighbors lived out of necessity.

So, when she said, "World Vision is caring, loving and compassionate," I realized that I was asking the wrong questions. Although it is important to figure out what causes poverty in order work towards systemic change, what is more important is being caring, loving and compassionate. Africa is blind so that when it is healed, the glory of God will be known. I am a child of wealth and privelige not because I am better than those who aren't but because when I am healed of my isolation and finally release myself into true community, the Kingdom of Heaven will grow larger, having brought one more person into its sphere of influence.

I thanked her for giving me the opportunity to be caring, loving and compassionate. Without her suffering and the suffering of her beautiful children, I would simply be dry dirt on the side of the road. Instead, through my association with World Vision, she offered me the chance to be mixed with the spit of Jesus and become mud in her eye.

Wie Gehts?

My pit stains are huge!

I just gave a tour to a group of about 30 pastors who are in town from Germany and Switzerland and even though I gave tours all the time, I was extremely nervous. I think part of it was my nervousness speaking for a translator and interrupting my normal flow plus trying to phrase things concisely and intelligently for easy translation, rather than my usual speaking patter that says the same things three different ways to make sure my bases are covered.

But I want the mocking to cease from the peanut gallery that includes my father and my brother Daniel. They fall over laughing every time we get to talking about the trip we took to Germany at the end of my junior year in high school. I was finishing up my second year studying the German language at a high school level and they expected me to just be throwing off phrases left and right. We didn’t know about my little culture shock problem AND we started the adventure by my dad telling the giant German landlady that she could just tell me how to get to Rothenburg aub de Tauber, which she proceeded to do in rapid German. Can you blame me for shrinking behind my mother for the rest of the trip? I did manage a decent “schones wolkenende” once at a conditerei that I was proud of because it was actually Friday and the beginning of a “good weekend.”

So, I started the tour wishing them, “Gut morgen.” Then I told them that, “Ich heisse Rebecca” which feels weird because my German name in class was Silke. I switched to English and assured them that was all I knew from two years of high school language class 15 years ago. I explained that we watched a lot of movies, though, so I could instruct them to, “Macht die forhinger zu” and “Macht die forhinger auf.” Also, “Macht the lichter zu.” And “Macht die lichter auf.”

Close and open the curtains. Turn the light on and off.

They laughed, which is always a good start to a tour.

Yay, Rebecca, for successful international communication! No more guff from you, Dad. I’ve made good on my education now.

But I was still nervous. I realize that for the first time, I had to explain domestic poverty to people from another country. I had to explain that many of our children live with their grandparents because of drugs. I had to explain that even with government help, working families can’t afford to buy their kids soap and clothing. I had to explain that teachers aren’t paid very well here and that they have to spend $1,000 to $2,000 of their own money every year to make sure that kids have pencils to do math with.

I was ashamed to air out America’s dirty laundry to people from another “developed” country. I recognized this shame in the middle of my talk and made sure that it didn’t make me try to gloss over our problems. These were other Christians. Our identity must be as followers of Christ first and members of the man-made states after. But the shame remained.

We don’t take care of our own.

If we did, the poor would still be with us, but they wouldn’t be trapped in poverty because of their birth, geography and skin color. They would have fallen into hard times recently and could be helped up simply with a little love and charity, rather than needing economic stimulus plans, betterment programs, legislation and affirmative action. We wouldn’t have systemic problems, only individual ones.
I have been surrounded by people that don’t speak English these last couple of months: Africa, the quincineara, shopping with Meena on Devon and this group this morning. These experiences are starting to allow me to see my world as other people might see it: a valuable perspective.

Clothing makes the (wo)man

As we all know by now, I lost my luggage on the way in to Zambia. Maybe it was my fault for being late to the plane. Maybe they pulled the luggage off the plane as a security precaution and then the waves and eddies of the general African perspective on efficiency took care of the rest. What I found most interesting is that whenever we called to check on it, we would be assured that it would be meet us at whatever small airport we were headed to next. “Oh yes, it will be on the charter flight that meets you in Kipushi.” My favorite was when Larry got off the phone, looked at me and said, “We are getting more confident that the luggage is somewhere.” I am fairly certain that the people who made these assurances knew that they were untrue when they said them. I don’t know how to analyse that. Is it a cultural priority to avoid upsetting people? Do other Africans receive such assurances as these in the spirit they were given: generous conciliation but not to be relied upon? If this is the case, then it is hard to fault a culture for placing good will between people over cold facts. Americans like their facts above all else. But, is it a leftover from colonialism to tell the White Man only what he wants to hear? That’s a little more worrisome.

Anyway, I had three tops, only one of which I could wear out in the more modest rural areas we would be visiting and a pair of pants, which would also be inappropriate. So, Debi loaned me a skirt and we went out on our first adventure in Musele. The first act of the people in Musele who greeted our bus was to give us gifts. They literally surrounded the women with chitenge: two meters of cloth, hemmed at both ends, worn as a skirt by tucking in the ends around our waists. Their sure fingers, strong with a lifetime of practice, wrapped us securely. Most of us struggled to re-wrap our skirts as they inevitably loosened with our movement. If we were lucky, a local woman would take pity on our plight and tuck it for us again. I got reasonable at it over the course of the week. I think maybe all that crafting has made my fingers dexterous.

But think of that metaphor. Not only were we surrounded into the landscape and culture of Africa, our bodies were literally encircled by African clothing. Like the art of Christo and Jean-Claude, our familiar identities were rendered new by being wrapped, like the Reichstag.

Women in Africa use the chitenge as skirts, aprons, head-wraps and as baby-carriers. I noticed that on Sundays and formal events, they were in evidence more frequently and that on particularly festive occasions, groups of women wore matching chitenge. When we met with a government official in DR Congo, he had 8 or 9 hay bale sized bundles of cloth in his office for the women to wear in the upcoming Independence Day events. I love what this says about the culture. First, it says that when there are things to celebrate (church, the digging of a new well, the arrival of a beloved statesman, welcoming visitors from Chicago) it is important to emphasize our African heritage, rather than the western influence of jeans and plain skirts with waistbands. It also says that there is strength in belonging to a group. The entire staff of DR Congo wore matching clothing and provided clothing made to our measurements in the same fabric as a gift for us to take home. It is stunning to be included in a group by that group simply because we traveled all that way to see them. They were honored and I was honored. I did not have to prove myself to be allowed into the group, either in Zambia or in DR Congo. I was loved unconditionally and clothed as a reflection of that love.

Almost every woman in the parts of Africa that I visited wore two skirts. Frequently, I saw women hand babies to each other or pick up children from the ground and casually tie the children to their backs to carry them around. This vivid display of the concept of taking a village to raise a child was impressive. Women are always prepared to care for one another's children. And children are prepared to accept direction from any adult. We saw this frequently. Arloa and I saw a little boy, about 3-years-old, step on something and hurt his foot. He cradled the foot and cried a little. His situation drew a crowd and another little girl, not much bigger than he was, assessed the situation and then calmly reached down and pulled him onto her back.

In wrapping us in chitenge, the women of Musele were taking us up onto their backs, like children. And we were children in Africa. At least, I felt like a child. Everything was new and hard to process. I have very little context for what was going on, so things didn't make sense. Certain World Vision staff took me up on their backs and helped me, particularly Jenny, who works out of the Lusaka headquarters. She would explain things that I was looking at but didn't understand far beyond simple translation. She had a sense of humor similar to mine (just a little bit wicked) and a delightful sense of joy. I loved to watch her join into the singing and dancing of the women whenever we would arrive in a new place. She extended hospitality to us everywhere we went by becoming part of the group of women who greeted us. I became particularly indebted to her when she pulled me into the procession of women dancing toward the site where the well would be dug and showed me her footwork so that I could dance, too. She told me that the words of the song were thanking God for the well that comes from Chicago. That's her all the way to right in the picture.

Jenny also facilitated the creation of my Zambian dress. In most hero stories, there is usually a moment in which the hero is stripped of the clothes she wore from home and she is given fine, new raiment's that are symbols of her new status. Consider Luke Skywalker's all-black outfit in the beginning of Return of the Jedi to signify his status as a new Jedi or Neo's ragged sweater and pants after literal nudity when he was awoken in The Matrix. A woman from Zambia named Princess Kasune Zulu used to pastor at River City and she wore the most beautiful dresses. The were cut to fit her curves perfectly and she designed them to look like high fashion. I have always harbored a secret wish to look like Princess. Losing my luggage afforded me this chance to strip away my old identity and become African, even the slightest bit. I was so pleased that the tailor took the care to line up the elements of the pattern of the fabric with the pattern of the dress: putting a wedge at the neckline and centering the fish and crustaceans at opportune spots. I think that the shape of my body is very similar to the ideal African woman's shape. Ivan, our translator in DR Congo, described the ideal as "bottle-shaped." I feel like this dress emphasizes the bottle-ness of my body in a way that American styles of jeans and t-shirts can't always do. I remember reading an article once by an Indian immigrant and the significant change of self-identity she felt when she began dressing like an American. The forgiving and lovely silk of her saris and salwar kameez(es?) that had made her feel like a woman were replaced by unflattering pants and tops that made her look chunky rather than curvaceous. What a glorious gift from a culture that values women for what their bodies actually are rather than a media-swamped culture that tries to push all women into being something other than themselves. I understand why the tradition of the American work ethic makes jeans a staple in our fashion. But the necessity of having a second suit of clothes became an unexpected re-introduction to myself as a more authentic woman. And I am grateful for that.

Amonth later, my luggage has not yet been returned to me.

Compared to the insight I was given that accompanied the gifts of clothing, I do not miss it.

What's this Farm Bill I keep hearing about?

I've been reading a lot about the Farm Bill on other Community Development blogs lately. I am in a state in my life where I'm kind of ignoring politics. Some of that has to do with the fact that I stopped listening to NPR so much when Bush entered office because I was always cringing at the way he pronounced, "Amayricah," like someone has stepped on the middle syllable. The other reason is good old-fashioned, staring-into-the-void apathy. I'm assuming this particular stage will end once I start studying Public Policy. You know, the study of how laws are constructed and written?

So, I skimmed the first couple of posts, accumulating small facts until I reached a point of crystalization and alluva sudden I had enough information that connected to one another to form a net in which to catch a passion for the issue. Thanks, Mike, for a post written well for laymen.

So, I was actually moved to write my congressmen, Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. This is what I wrote:

I am disturbed that the Farm Bill passed through the House of Representatives without the Kind/Flake amendment.

I work in domestic non-profit community development on the west side of Chicago and recently took my first trip to Africa to observe the community development work World Vision does internationally. What I know from these experiences is that we have to allow people living in poverty to work their way out of poverty by their own power. It is the only sustainable option.

Renewing the Farm Bill without anything resembling the Kind/Flake amendment to put a cap on corporate subsidies subverts market forces and keeps the poor in poverty. This should be a no-brainer for the Republicans, who have dropped the ball entirely. Please pick it up again and run with it for the sake of both our farmers and international farmers, both of whom have unacceptable standards of living. We all have to eat and farmers are the ones that make it possible. Shouldn't we allow them the dignity of earning a better life for themselves and to be paid what their work is worth? Subsidies to corporate farms drive down prices unnaturally and de-value the work of human beings.

Please don't let this bill get past your office unaltered. Please reduce subsidies to corporate farmers.

Sincerely,

If you would like to write your senators, you can find easy contact forms at http://www.senate.gov/. Feel free to use my letter or to write your own.

Hooray for being moved to actually do something. It's like getting up off your butt and finally going to yoga. Everything feels better afterwards.

Curmudgeon

I am gruuumpyyy today! Don't talk to me. There are very few generous or love-your-neighbor impulses in me. I find myself thinking, "What do they think I'm here for? To serve them?" when organizations from the community call to ask for stuff. Of course, that cranky rhetorical question has an actual answer: "Yes, it is literally written in your job description to serve the people."

Fine.

But I don't have to like it.

Actually, I'm trying to spend as much time as possible doing mundane tasks that have to be done before I leave so that I have as little interaction with people as possible. I'll do those tasks tomorrow when I'm friendly again.

Lead us not into temptation, right?