Christ | most hopeful

Jul 28 2013

protest at the table

Even though I’ve heard it repeated, the story is told regularly and goes like this:

Donald, roughly 3-5 years old sitting at the kitchen table during family dinner. I see a booster seat need based on my age.
Mom: Donald, you have to eat your brussel sprouts before you can get up from the table.
Donald: I don’t like them.
Mom: Well, you’re going to have to eat them before you get up from the table. I don’t think you’ve ever tried them before.
Donald: I don’t like them. I’m not going to eat them.
Dad: You will sit right there until you eat them. Conversation over.
While usually allowed to disagree, the “conversation over” card means be quiet or else. To speak is bad news.

The story apparently plays out that I sit at the table, refusing to eat my brussel sprouts, (I imaging a cigarette in mouth and newspaper in hand, but it’s likely that I went between whining and being way to cool to make eye contact for the next SEVERAL HOURS. I ultimately refused to eat the brussel sprouts (a food I now love), and sat at the table, triumphant, got a spanking, triumphant, and went to bed, crying…..and triumphant.

+++

I have friends, some considered by me as close as family, who live and work in the ordinary ways of nonprofit work in Cape Town, South Africa. Their stories seems incredible, but it mimics the news reports here in Jackson, the news reports in Chicago, and the news reports all over the globe. In the community that Fusion finds themselves in, Manenberg, in Cape Town, SA , there have multiple shootings resulting in multiple deaths lately. A community mourns, and the church wonders what is next.

I’m sure churches there, like churches here, continue to worry about issues of childcare and women in leadership and politics and budgets and music styles and whatever else occupies time. And still, Christians there, like Christians here, are finding themselves standing in the spaces where lives have been lost, injustice smells like dried blood and spent gunpowder, and are wondering what it means to follow Christ.

+++

And there’s something valuable in ways that transcend time and space about protesting at the table.
Friends in Manenberg serve soup on the very same pavement and dirt spaces where lives have been lost and chalk outlines could have washed out by now. The value of a meal shared together overcomes the injustice and lack of shalom that leads to violence in the streets in Manenberg, and in Jackson, and in Nicaragua, and around the globe.

And so a group of believers end up deciding that while the believe in the hard facts of guns and gunfire and bullets and death and blood and chalk outlines, they believe something about the table to be healing and to be hope calling and hope inducing, so they serve soup in the very spaces where lives have been lost.

And they proclaim that Christ is king and kingdom comes. Ultimately. Always.

+++

I sat at the communion rail today, accepting the sacraments of his body and blood, both knowing what they mean and at the same time accepting that I have no idea what I’m actually doing. I look across the others at the communion rail. I look across the others in the room. Drama fills the air. Frustration fills the space.

But the space at the table is a space of shared protest, promise, and therefore hope.

All is not well, but all will be well.
The world goes not well, but the kingdom comes.
It comes in Manenberg, South Africa. Soup is served in the spaces where lives have been lost.
It comes in Jackson, Tennessee. Peace is accepted in the spaces where insecurities breed.
It comes in our hearts. The future is claimed for kingdom come while the present is unclear as to how it gets here.

His kingdom come
His will be done
On earth as in heaven.

Who knows how.
We pray not knowing how to pray.
And the table becomes a place of protest.
And kingdom comes.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged Brussels sprout, cape town, Chicago, Christ, communion, el ayudante, eucharist, Fusion, hope, Manenberg, nicaragua, protest, reasonable, South Africa, the warehouse, warehouse trust

Jul 02 2013

3 Comments

learning to live, social work, what they are teaching me

when it’s worth saying

She held her hands over her mouth
most of the time she talked,
which I’ve been trained to know means
she’s not sure about what she’s saying
and she isn’t sure it’s worth someone else hearing

I find out soon enough
that her pastor tells her she can’t get divorced
even after she knows she’s gotten
an STD from him
a reputation from him
a history and an internalized notion of not being enough for him

but she can’t get divorced from him
so my only hope
and maybe her only hope is
to help her feel strong enough
to know she is strong enough
to stand up to him and maybe
to stand up to her pastor

to say that she thinks
just maybe
even though all of her life has suggested otherwise
that she is worth standing up for herself
and that she is worth having someone else stand up for her. ‘

poverty and power and religion and resources
blur the lines between
what God desires for his people
and what his people end up living through.

and it is, in fact, his people who are called
to put up a fight.
And we, then, cover our mouths as well
because we aren’t sure about what we’re saying
and if it’s worth someone else hearing.

djordan
Summar Dr.

Tagged Christ, counseling, etc., God, Health, listening, Mental Health, Pastor, pastoral counseling, Sexually transmitted disease, social work, United States, value, worth

May 12 2013

2 Comments

on, poems, Quotes, social work, the calendar, what they are teaching me

mother’s day proclamation

In the culturally Christian environment of the south where the rules of who women should be and what they should do, mixed as strongly with who they should not be and what they should not do, I am reminded today of the women and mom’s in my own world who have lived into the fulness of themselves for the sake of the world. Those who seek to follow Christ have just as much lived into themselves for the sake of the kingdom come. In areas of health, justice, faith, education, art, academia, research, motherhood, women are pushing what it means into the heart of what it actually does mean.

So on this mother’s day, as reminded by this recent article, here’s to the women who are changing the world as they were made and meant to do, not quietly living into a solemn story someone else told them they had to act in. And to my own mom, thanks for teaching me to ask the questions.

Below is the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” written by Julia Ward Howe in in 1870, pushing women to pacifism and resistance.

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly…
“Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God –

For the article by Diana Butler Bass on the history of Mother’s Day as a day celebrating radical mothers, CLICK HERE.
For an article posted today on women seeking to pray through the violence of tradition, CLICK HERE.
Or for a more light-hearted open letter to Moms by Kid President, CLICK HERE.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Christ, christian mothers, christian women, civil rights, Diana Butler Bass, Julia Ward Howe, mom, moms, Mother, motherhood, Mothers Day, mothers day proclamation, protest

Apr 17 2013

1 Comment

learning to live, on, poems, Prayers

after a long night | on john 21

It seems more often than not that we find ourselves
in the boat
in the middle of the same damn sea
trying our hardest to do what we’ve done a thousand times before.

We try even harder on the heels of failure
or even on the heels of victory.
And sometimes, like Peter, we try when we can’t tell
at all what we are on the heels of.

And still, all night long, we do what we know to do
and we try what has always worked
and we finally throw it all down, take off our clothes, and try to get some rest
because the work itself is almost unbearable.

It’s then, of course, that we hear Your voice:
Do it one more time.
Do it just like this.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.

And so, after someone whispers in our ear
that they think it’s Your voice,
we do it one more time,
just like this,
we do it.

And the nets almost burst,
but they don’t.
We bring it all in.

And we don’t know why or how,
but we come to trust
that after a long night of
hard work and nothing to show for it,
you speak
and the nets nearly burst.

Give us the strength to keep listening
and to keep fishing
after long nights of nothing.

Amen.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged Christ, despair, Disciple whom Jesus loved, fish, God, hoping, jesus, john, john 21, lectionary, listening, longing, Lord, peter, Saint Peter, trust, wait, waiting, work

Mar 29 2013

3 Comments

Uncategorized

if you know these things…

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. + John 13. 17

I remember last year sitting in a Maundy Thursday foot washing service. We were at a Methodist church in my neighborhood sharing the duties for a night of Room in the Inn, an emergency shelter program that houses our community’s homeless in churches across the city every night of the year.

I watched a friend of mine who grew up with my grandfather wash the feet of the adopted child of good friends of man. An old man hunches over to wash the feet of a young man who has become a part of a family I care a great deal about. I remember sitting in that room of the sanctuary off of Forest watching my grandfather’s high school classmate wash the feet of my friends’ adopted son. I was sitting in the pews next to our homeless guests who had decided to join us.

Something felt very surreal and very holy.

Tonight, one year later, I found myself sitting in a Maundy Thursday service at the church I have called home for the last several months. I had my feet washed by a very good friend, and found myself remembering one year ago and the ragtag company and heavenly connections that found themselves mixed together in that sanctuary dimly lit observing that evening where that last supper was had in that upper room.

And I know, more than anything, that there is something very serious about this ancient practice that really makes no sense. Water poured over my feet tonight and poured over the feet of the son of friends one year ago by a classmate of my grandfather whom I miss deeply.

And there is some connection with the water and the flesh and the candlelight of what it means to lean into some way of life that makes no sense, and yet not leaning into makes even less sense when we still ourselves to try to evaluate it. And I watch online as friends ands acquaintances wait for pastors and priests and authors to tell them how to draw lines and what to think and where to make a stand on issues of politics and moral legislation.

And I wonder what it would mean to hear men and women push, more than anything, to follow Christ into the practice of washing the feet of those who will betray us, those who will deny us, those who will hurt us and embarrass us. There is a sense of fake honor in standing up against those who disagree with us, but there is a sense of real humility in washing the feet of those we desperately want to join us int he journey in the dark. this journey in the dark that we hope, Lord help us, is a journey toward the light.

To know is one thing. To wash the feet of another is wholly other. To humble ourselves and serve others in our own awkwardness and powerlessness is wholly other. We can know a great deal, or think we know a great deal, about what it means to follow Christ, but to actually do it is wholly other.

Beware those who announce they are doing the hard thing by drawing lines in the sand. And pay careful attention to those who say little and wash feet much.

To know is not to be blessed.

If you know these things, and do them, you are blessed.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged answers, Christ, dignity, easter, Foot washing, Holy Week, Homelessness, honor, hoping, humility, jesus, Last Supper, Maundy Thursday, Pastor, Religion and Spirituality, service, waiting

Mar 16 2013

what are we doing?

In the middle of multiple meetings lately, either starting with coffee because it is far too early or in the morning, or starting with coffee because it is far too late in the evening, I find myself in the middle of multiple meetings.

There are papers and computers and skyped-in video faces and clicking pens and reshuffled papers and dogs under the table because that’s the way it works when we are meeting whenever and wherever we can.

And I find myself often in these meetings wondering what in the world I have gotten myself into. I will either have a dining room filled with two bodies and one skyped-in face arguing and agreeing and praying our way through to a more hopeful and sustainable work in another country with real people with real skills and dreams and aspirations, or I will find myself in a dining room looking across a kitchen, a living room and a den filled with students and adults who are learning what it means to follow Christ into their own city. We talk about what truama-informed care looks like, what it means to view others through a lens of strengths instead of through a lens of shortcomings, and what we are actually doing when we are serving in low-income, high-crime neighborhoods a few miles from my home.

And I look at both of these groups, all people I am falling deeply in love with and flying highly in respect with, and wonder what in the world we are doing. Who let us be responsible for these tasks, and who knows we are learning as we go? I often feel as though I snuck into a grown up world, and the bouncers didn’t catch me, the Deans didn’t notice, and the bosses didn’t pay attention before putting me in these positions.

So knowing that I am leaning into the work at the same time as I am learning it, I find myself most amazed at what God insists on doing through my own ignorance, unpreparedness, and incompetence. We take seriously the discipline of learning and asking and pushing and working, but the generosity of God is the only thing which actually moves us from point A to point B.

And so we keep moving. From dining room table to living room floor, we lean into whatever it means to live out the kingdom of God in León or in Jackson or in wherever in God’s name we end up living something out. We pray we do it well knowing all the while that we are quite a mess.

I went to the grocery store last week in my pajamas and saw three people I know, but not well enough to make a joke about being in my pajamas. I went to a service with church two weeks ago and in a rush had only trimmed half of my beard.

I am what I am, and we are what we are, and while we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, we are doing what we know to do and working to do it better, more effectively, more educatedly, more honestly, more humanly day by day. We are reading and studying and listening and praying our tails off, but we have to move now. It’s worth filling up dining room tables and living room floors for, I would say. It is in breaking bread and coming together that God let’s us know what is next.

We don’t know what we are doing, but he does. And as long as we are diligently working to learn and seek and know more about what we’re doing, he makes the kingdom come. We merely jump in.

djordan
Pine Tree

Donald is privileged to work with a ridiculously awesome staff at Area Relief Ministries, a local non-profit in Jackson, Tennessee working to alleviate suffering, promote dignity and foster hope in a multitude of ways. He also serves on the Board of Directors with three other very talented and influential individuals for El Ayudante, Nicaragua who seeks to work with the Nicaraguan people to transform the nation. These meeting often end up happening in Donald’s living room and dining room, which make living at Pine Tree worthwhile in and of themselves. Check out Area Relief Ministries and El Ayudante | Nicaragua online.

Tagged area relief ministries, Christ, church, counseling, Dining room, el ayudante, helping, hope, hoping, insecure, listening, Living room, nervous, nonprofit, pathways, social work, unknown, waiting, work

Oct 02 2012

the class who shows up | on the 5th annual homicide-loss walk

After five years of standing in line watching men and women, propped up babies on hips and grandparents escorted with walkers, this year was different altogether.

It is both encouraging and discouraging to see the crowd grow year after year at the Commemorative Walk for survivors of homicide-loss. It’s been my privilege to listen to and learn from these men and women in a weekly support group, but to see them walk through candlelit paths holding photos of their murdered husbands, sons, grandsons, wives, mothers and grandmothers is altogether horrifying and holy at the same time.

And it has been every year these last five years since the very first walk. It is always holy in the way honestly telling the honest truth is always holy and almost always horrifying.

But this year, there was something new for me as I stood in the evening’s mist.

Looking into the line of men and women with faces barely glowing from the candles in their hands, I saw my students. The clock strikes nine every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and my students are faithful to be patient with me in class as I dance onto tangents, threaten with grades and bribe with food. They have listened to me grow awkwardly teary about the histories of movers and shakers from the margins of the field whom God has used to bring kingdom change across the globe. They have held on as we’ve acted out counseling sessions, as we’ve debated the reasons for poverty and welfare, and as we have pushed the questions of power dynamics and our goodwill to the limits. They always show up.

But this night, lining the sidewalks where women and men who have become dear to me walk through their glowing candles and make clear that their murdered loved ones will not be forgotten, my students showed up. As tears filled my own eyes, I lost my breath in thinking that these very students were standing physically and symbolically right on a dangerous line. They were being both witness to the hard and horrible and hopeless truths like rampant homicide in a community, and were also making a symbolic promise that as social workers who are Christians they will join in the kingdom work to make peace on earth as it is in heaven.

My prayer for those students and any of my students, is that some day in the not-so-distant future there will be professors of Social Work or Theology or Education or Business standing up in front of their own classes telling the names of my students, and talking about how they pushed in from the margins to make peace and to change the world with and for Christ and his kingdom.

And when I hear those stories told, I’ll remember the way their faces glowed this night.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Christ, commemorate, death, God, grief, homicide, jackson, loss, remember, Remember Me, social work, students, Support group, tn, trauma

most hopeful

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Tag Archives: Christ

after a long night | on john 21

if you know these things…