The Margins

Our big prayer request going into the hearing on Monday was that God would move in a powerful way before the hearing even took place. I realized on Monday how slow I can be to believe that God will actually choose to answer prayers like that.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Pablo’s legal representative outside of the room where the hearing would be held. As we waited together for the room to open, this gentleman informed us of a few amendments to their proposal. First, they had removed their request to sell hard alcohol, period. Second, they were eliminating the bar area inside the restaurant. Third, they were only requesting the ability to sell beer and wine with a sit-down food purchase. And lastly, they had scaled back the hours of operation to close nightly at 9pm. Additionally, they had entered a lease agreement with a church located a block away to use nine parking spaces in that lot, and their plan now is to offer free valet service and park customer’s cars at the church, in addition to utilizing the few spaces available on the property.

After hearing all of this, we were of course very pleased, and while we still took the time in the hearing to voice our concerns, I feel almost certain that the city will rule in their favor.

It is clear from their initial proposal that their business plan includes the sale of hard liquor, the operation of a bar, and the sale of alcohol without food. The language they used on Monday in describing their amended proposal was very clearly laced with words like “for now” and “for this next year”, or “for a set time”. I feel confident that if the ruling goes as we think it will, the restaurant will open, and one or two or three years later, we will be back in that room facing their request for the full liquor provisions they initially desired. So it goes.

It was great to meet Pablo and his wife. They are long-term residents of our neighborhood, and their kids attend local schools. They seem like kind and genuine people who are looking to make a positive investment in the neighborhood. When they open, we will certainly become patrons.

However, as everyone acknowledged, liquor sales fuel profits, and the slick representation they had would not have come cheaply. I firmly believe that we will have a fight on our hands in two years.

In the meantime, I am praising God for hearing our (and many of your) prayers and acting so visibly on our behalf.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at our sister church in Pasadena. It is always wonderful to be with these extraordinary people who have made our mission here a significant part of their own mission as a church. I am always blessed when I have the chance to be with them.

I shared with them about how things have been recently on Kenwood, and the ways we are responding through our block club and weekly prayer meetings. I also shared about the hearing today that many of us will attend regarding an individual’s request for a liquor license to sell liquor at the end of our street.

I told them how right now, Mercy is infatuated with the David and Goliath story. I said that if I am not reading the story or telling it to her, I am helping her act it out with toys, etc. Here was this weekend’s installment:

I shared with them how evident it is that Mercy believes that this story is true: she believes that a little boy really brings down a giant. I talked about how I feel a lot like David on most days. The giants on my street are well armed (literally) and I usually feel like I am walking around clutching a little stone. But I am called to believe like my daughter does, and to stake my life on what may look insignificant, foolish and small. I am called to believe in miracles.

“If I ask to be delivered from trial rather than for deliverance out of it, to the praise of His glory; if I forget that the way of the cross leads to the cross and not to a bank of flowers; if I regulate my life on these lines, or even unconsciously my thinking, so that I am surprised when the way is rough and think it strange, though the word is, ‘Think it not strange,’ ‘Count it all joy,’ then I know nothing of Calvary love.”

From “If”, by Amy Carmichael

I usually let Mercy pick out which books she would like me to read to her when I tuck her in for her afternoon nap. Today it was the story of Joseph, or “The Egypt Story” as she called it. The book is one of a set we were given that includes the story of Noah, David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, and Moses.

When I got to the last page where Joseph stands, surrounded by his brothers who are pleading with him for mercy, I realized the strangest thing: while every other member of Joseph’s family appears Middle Eastern (dark hair and non-European features), Joseph is a totally European-looking blonde.

Doug and I often talk about the “christian” books we have been given by various people. Some of them (the non-Bible story ones like books of prayers, etc.) make an obvious attempt at representing ethnic diversity in the pictures of little girls and boys and mommies and daddies. But we have sadly noted that, on any page where Jesus is depicted with children, it is always a blonde child that is held in his arms or seated on his lap. Brown and black children are always relegated to the periphery.

I sometimes wonder how Mercy and Aaron’s worldview is affected by living where they are the ethnic minority. I will never forget one of my first trips home to Seattle after Mercy was born. We were in my home church’s nursery and she was hesitant to go to people there that she did not know. One of our good friends there who is African American came in, and Mercy turned and went straight to her. And this last trip, Aaron was utterly enamored with our pastor’s daughter (who reflects her dad’s Mexican heritage) and only wanted to be held by her.

I have spoken before of my daughter’s Cinderella fascination. I have made the observation that Cinderella has grown more blonde over the years (she has wonderful strawberry blonde hair in the movie and original Disney books, but in all the annoying “princess” paraphernalia that is now being sold, she is totally blonde). But what is interesting to me is that the two figures Mercy has selected to be “Cinderella” in our house have black hair (I won’t even speculate here about Cinderella-Tree). One of them is a cloth doll from Mexico that I bought years ago when I studied there. The doll has on a partially pink dress which, for Mercy, apparently was enough to doom her to Cinderellahood. The other is a Little People figurine that looks Asian.

Many of us had the chance to see the disturbing film made recently by a high school student that deals with self-image among black girls. The filmmaker resurrects a famous study from 1947 and shows black children consistently and heartbreakingly preferring white dolls to black ones, identifying the white dolls as “nice” and “good” while naming the black dolls as “bad”. Watching this film made me cry.

I certainly don’t know the intentions of the Christian publishing house that chose to illustrate Joseph as a Europen-looking blonde. But it actually makes my stomach feel sick.

Last night we had out first gathering for weekly prayer for our street. It was great to come together around the purpose of lifting our neighbors and our neighborhood up in prayer, and I am hopeful for how we will see God work in response. We prayed for specific families, for specific buildings, for peace and safety, for justice and opportunity. We prayed for our own witness here, that, as the children’s song suggests, we would not hide our light here under bushels; that we would stand against the powers of Satan that would seek to blow our light out.

One example of what that looks like in the coming week: Monday afternoon, a group of us will head downtown to testify at a hearing concerning a local business’ request for a liquor license. There is an individual who has plans to open a small restaurant/bakery at the end of our street, right next door to the little grocery market on the corner. This individual has applied for a full liquor license to serve all kinds of liquor, and to not require food purchase along with it. This individual is claiming that they wish to make alcohol available to its dining patrons, but it is easy to see their clear maneuverings to enable liquor sales wholly apart from the consumption of meals. Yes, this person wishes to open a restaurant, but it is clear that he also wants to establish a bar.

Now, as I have noted here before, Doug and I have no problem with people consuming alcohol. We drink it, we serve it in our home, we order it in restaurants. We used to enjoy going to bars (that was before the children). However, there are issues with having liquor sales in this community that cause us great concern. One of the first ways that the early founders of our church engaged their neighborhood here was the battle to close down a trouble liquor store. This store was a known hangout for gang members who ran drugs in the back by the video games; prostitutes were available and aggressive on the street outside; the store itself was handing out cups of ice along with hard alcohol purchases, effectively transforming the corner outside into an open bar. Shootings were frequent as a result of the drug sales and gang activity.

Our church founders, after the house they were renting across the street from this liquor store was struck by bullets, began to talk with neighbors about the issues surrounding this store. They persisted in building a coalition of neighbors to engage the legal/political system in L.A. and after literally years of work, they were ultimately victorious in seeing the store’s liquor license revoked, and that property re-zoned to never permit the sale of liquor again. The ironic name of that liquor store? Lucky Liquor (or Not-So-Lucky Liquor as they liked to say). Today, a nice neighborhood grocery store serves our community where the liquor store used to stand.

When Doug and I first moved here, and when I was serving as the director of our local tutoring program, there was another liquor store further down that same street that was also a blight and threat to our community. The store owners failed to comply with regulations that required a security guard to be always present out front; the prostitution there was some of the most blatant I have ever seen; and the store was actually selling the little balloons that crack dealers use to conceal rocks in case they need to swallow them if they are approached by the police. This store was located on the one corner that had a crosswalk between where we live and the local grade school: it broke my heart to see our kids have to pass through such activity on their way to and from school. And it was yet another case of the abuse and exploitation of the poor and vulnerable by a non-local business owner interested in making easy cash. I had the opportunity to testify at the hearing against this liquor store owner (I think I have mentioned here before about the local pastor who showed up to testify in favor of this business-owner: a clear example of why living where you worship matters), and we saw that store lose its license as well.

Well, the new business that is requesting a license to sell liquor sits adjacent to where Lucky Liquor once stood. And for all of us who remember how things used to be here, and who saw what a remarkable transformation occurred when that store closed its doors, the thought of a new establishment opening its doors is horrifying. As my politically savvy brother-in law who led the charge against the other liquor stores reminds us, it is much easier to prevent these places from being established in the first place than it is to get rid of them once they exist.

The site of this potential restaurant/bar is at the end of my street. We have enough on our street already that concerns us. I feel strongly that adding readily available alcohol will only hurt all of us here, as I fear that it will exploit the poor and the addicted for the sake of someone’s profit. I cannot bear to think about returning to those darker days of fear and violence living in the shadows of Lucky Liquor. If you think of us on Monday, say a prayer for our testimonies and for the outcome of this hearing.

I started blogging in 2005. Mercy was a few months old, I was in my final months of study at Fuller Seminary, and I remember that it was around the time that we began putting Mercy down for a regular morning nap. I would put her down in her crib, and on most days I would spend the next hour and a half studying furiously for John Thompson’s Church History class, but on others I would sit down and indulge in writing a blog post. Maybe it was the isolation that new motherhood can bring, maybe it was the stress of trying to balance tough academic work with sleepless nights, and maybe it was the need to carve out something that was just for me, but blogging helped me feel a bit more human.

I first got the idea to blog because a good friend of mine had started. I loved reading her thoughts, and she told me how easy it was to set one up. Around that same time, another good friend introduced me to Heather Armstrong’s blog, dooce.com, and I quickly became a regular reader there (along with hundreds of thousands of other people). She made me laugh and sometimes cry, and I was struck by the level of intimacy she revealed in her writing. These were my initial inspirations, and they were the extent of my blog reading.

I stopped blogging that May, the day that I found out I was pregnant with Aaron. Mercy was only six months old, I was terribly sick that first trimester, and life overall became pretty overwhelming. Oh, and I was in the midst of a difficult quarter of Hebrew that was sucking the life out of me. All that to say, blogging fell completely off the radar for that season.

I started blogging again three months after Aaron was born. I don’t remember why, but perhaps it is not coincidental that it was about the same amount of time after Aaron’s birth that I resumed as it had been after Mercy’s when I had started blogging in the first place.

Sometime in the spring of 2006, I started reading Scot McKnight’s blog regularly. I also added my blog to a website that features a collection of bloggers within my denomination, and also became a contributor at Meremission.org. At some point, Scot McKnight picked up my blog and added me to his blogroll, and started highlighting pieces that I wrote in his weekly “Meanderings” feature. I am pretty sure that Scot McKnight is single-handedly responsible for the majority of people who read this blog. Later that summer, Doug and his brother surprised me with a new domain that allowed for me to leave Blogger and switch to Wordpress. This made me very happy!

Somewhere along the way, people began to visit this site regularly and share wonderful comments and encouragement. I also began reading more blogs and I “met” some truly delightful individuals this way. Actually, that understates things. I have had new relationships form that I am intensely grateful for that likely would never have happened any other way. I now have a very dear friend on the other side of the country who ended up at this site because of a google search for someone else. It is amazing and humbling to consider how God works through any medium. If for no other reason than this, I am grateful for this blog.

I don’t usually get too introspective about why I blog. It is a habit for me now, something I just sit down and do, usually every day. I think that writing here helps me sift through and sort the events of my life, not necessarily understanding them but at least telling their story. And I find that if I do go a day or two without blogging, I begin to feel an itch, a small agitation in my spirit, and it is with relief that I return to this keyboard and pound something out.

This blog is at once a very personal exercise, yet it is done in a public venue. As a strong introvert, that is an interesting juxtaposition for me. And I cannot answer why I have never been able to maintain the spiritual discipline of journaling (private), yet have found success in the discipline of blogging (public) daily. Something to ponder.

I have been thinking about all of this because of something I read recently on someone else’s blog. A young woman in Chicago found my blog and describes what happens here this way:

“John Steinbeck writes a beautiful essay about “Why Soldiers Don’t Talk,” where he explains how men who go to war and women who give birth have a biological mechanism that causes them to be totally unable to re-live the pain and fear of those events because they will be required to repeat them in order for society to progress. All they can remember is that they were afraid and that is was painful. They cannot actually call up that pain and fear, the way most of us can do with tastes and music, they can only call up the memory. I believe that this is the other reason most memoirs and speeches of community development practitioners are a little blah. The immediacy is missing.

With the nostalgic tone that most people tell their stories with and the details that elapsed time and the need to summarize leave out, as an audience, we must use our imaginations to empathize with how hard it must be to live in under-resourced communities. Our imaginations aren’t enough, though, because we are limited by our own lack of experience. We imagine an extension of our suburban, middle-class experience and that does not do their lives justice. This is why I was glad to find The Margins. Because the story is being told while it happens, there is no over-arching thesis to be proven. Her brain has not had time to protect her from the memory of being scared for herself and her children. Because of this, her faith in the midst of all she is going through shines all the brighter. Read especially Erika’s post A Walk in the Park to see what I’m talking about. She doesn’t know yet that it will all turn out to be OK. But she does it anyway.”

I have always hoped for the privilige someday of writing books. But for now, I am grateful for this opportunity to “tell the story while it happens.” And I am grateful as well for those who have joined us in our story here. You are a daily blessing to me.

Yesterday we were walking home from our friends’ house when we suddenly found ourselves in a dangerous situation. Two guys in two cars were street racing, flying down the street where we were walking at terribly high speeds, racing through intersections without stopping, and doing doughnuts in those intersections. They were driving like insane people, and there we were on the sidewalk a few feet from them as they raced. I was terrified. All I could picture was one or both of their cars going out of control and coming up onto the sidewalk where we walked.

We managed our way through the two blocks where they were doing most of their stunts, and quickly returned to our house. They showed no sign of stopping: people were now coming out of their homes to see what was happening as a result of the horrible sounds of their tires and the clouds of smoke that literally filled entire blocks as they would pass. During this time, I got on our cell phone and dialed 911. I waited on hold for at least five minutes. Finally, after loading the stroller into the garage and getting the kids upstairs, I was able to use our landline and I got right through. The operator put me through to dispatch and they promised to send a patrol car right over.

The whole thing freaked me out (Doug and I have also been catching up on 24 this week, so maybe I am a little more tense than normal!). But what has continued to bother me is the fact that a cell phone call to 911 may not be answered, at least not quickly. Whenever I go out and about with the kids here, I am always careful to bring my cell phone with me to have in case a situation arises and I need emergency assistance. What I realized last night is that I am probably better off calling Doug or my sister. It is interesting here to have the layers of what I thought were my “securities” stripped away. First it was the bullet holes in our friends’ second story bedroom (I thought we were safe from street gunfire on the second floor). Now it is access to help in an emergency if I am away from my home.

On our way home from the park yesterday, we ran into an old friend who lives around the corner from us. This friend was standing outside of his house holding a beautiful baby boy. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we were so excited to meet his new son. The baby is five months old, and so the conversation very quickly turned to the kind of story-swapping that parents do: is your baby sleeping through the night? How much does he weigh? Does he cry a lot?

It turns out that as far as first time parents go, he’s having a pretty easy time. His son is sleeping great at night, and the little guy has a great temperament. The baby smiled and laughed frequently when we were with him, and I have never seen our friend look happier or more proud. Our neighbor hadn’t seen our two for a while and he was amazed at how big they both were. I am pretty sure that the last time he saw them, Mercy was still mostly bald and Aaron was just a little lump in our Baby Bjorn. As we were getting ready to leave, I told him that if he ever needed a babysitter, I am home a lot and would be happy to take care of his little one.

As we turned onto Kenwood, I marveled at the complexity of the issues in our neighborhood, and at the humanity of them. You see, this friend is one of the young men I talk about who is at the center of much of the criminal activity we see here. The reason he has not seen our kids lately is that he has been incarcerated, and only recently released.

I am going to go through the boxes of Aaron’s clothes that he so quickly outgrew and pick out some outfits to take over this week to our friend. I hope that our family can be a part of this little boy’s life here.

“The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do. The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God’s identity and love and ways.”

Anne Lamott in a Salon article called God Doesn’t Take Sides (I read this quote on someone’s blog this past week and after trying to remember where and failing, I googled it to find the source. So, thanks to someone!)

I had a good heart to heart with one of my neighbors yesterday. We were discussing some recent events on our street that are causes for concern. They involve some new tenants in one of the apartment buildings, and the return of two young men from jail after time served for their most recent run of criminal activity. My neighbor does a good job of policing the corner, and she does not hesitate to get in some of these guys faces and tell them to stop certain things they are doing or she will call the police. She has kids, and she obviously has a very personal interest in what goes on outside their door.

As we talked, she said to me: “It’s going to get worse around here…quickly.” She is only all too aware of the kinds of things the two young men who are back home are prone to do. “I am going to start looking for a new place,” she said, shaking her head. I told her how sad I would be if they moved away. Her kids are some of my kids’ dearest playmates (in spite of a large age difference), and her youngest daughter has begun attending our church faithfully this past year. This woman is the person I most enjoy seeing and talking to in my everyday life here.

The past few weeks, those of us from our church who live on Kenwood have decided to gather weekly to pray for our street. We have planned to begin meeting next Tuesday, and to invite anyone else from our street that might like to participate. It is our hope and belief that God will hear our cries as he has promised in the scriptures to do. We want to pray for people like my friend and her kids; for the boys who are fresh out of incarceration; for the drug trade and the violence that it breeds. I am glad for this decision. I think I struggled a bit with a sense of imbalance earlier when we all participated corporately in our block club that sought to handle safety issues through legal and civic means, but were not spending time together to pray for the very people and situations we were battling.

I don’t know if my friend next door would ever join us, but I will invite her.