The Margins

We went to the OB yesterday and found out that I am immune to the Fifths Disease virus, which means I most likely caught the virus as a child. I do have memories of doctors thinking that I had it a long time ago, and today I am so very grateful for that. Our OBs were very happy to deliver the good news.

Thanks to the many of you who have lifted our family up in your prayers!

We also met with the Producers for the Discovery Channel show, but that will be another post altogether…

I received an email recently from a dear friend who shares our passion for loving justice and mercy among America’s urban poor. In her email concerning a new initiative that Doug and I may play a part in, she says this: “We, so far, have not succeeded that way because gang kids and other urban affairs simply aren’t on anybody’s agenda. Africa has made the cut with the new evangelicals, but the American inner city, not.”

I found her words blunt and sobering and true.

A lot of churches and individuals “dip into” the inner-city thing, but few become true champions for change. I have seen time and time again how churches will ultimately opt for the “mission trip” experience/mentality, choosing South America and Africa or maybe Asia to ignite their members’ passion for ministry, and largely abandon any serious focus on neighbors who may live only fifteen miles away. As another friend said recently: “We’re big on the ’sexy’ missions opportunities around here…”

One of the sad parts of my trip back to North Park in April (other than encounters with taxi-cabs), was seeing how the focus on that campus has shifted so dramatically away from direct involvement in loving their urban neighbors. When I was around, most every student was involved in some fashion with a volunteer opportunity to directly serve the Albany Park community. Today it seems that there are a very few committed students who give themselves to a dwindling number of service opportunities. Meanwhile, the cover of the most recent Alumni magazine touts the high number of students engaging children and families in distant lands through one and two-week mission trips.

I work for a global sending agency for missions throughout the world, and in no way do I desire to see less passion and interest for our neighbors in Africa, Asia and the like. In my own experience, traveling and seeing God’s work among people He loves in very different cultures and contexts than my own was transformative in my faith journey. But as a good friend who recently traveled to Africa as a medical missionary told me: that experience overseas changes the me that lives here; if my life does not somehow reorient and respond differently to the needs in my own backyard, then I am largely a hypocrite.

I wonder what others have to think about this…

I appreciate those people in my life who help keep me honest.

I got home after a long day of meetings for Servant Partners, and after picking my kids up and making our way back home, I met up with a dear friend for some prayer time in preparation for her wedding. When I finally sat down at my computer to check email late this afternoon, I found an email from my sister waiting for me that totally made me laugh.

You see, I wrote here about the evening we spent at her house on Monday. I spoke of the peaceful dinner we enjoyed in her backyard, and I painted an idyllic picture of my children at play. Anna’s email reminded me of how the night actually looked for my family:

Hey hermana,
I logged onto your blog this afternoon at a point when I just needed a break from Engine House #18 [a grant proposal she is working on for our Community Development Corporation]. Can you guess my favorite parts…?

“Her yard felt like an oasis in the midst of all the sirens and commotion in the air and on our streets, and I was grateful for the feelings of peace we enjoyed there.”

So, the mental picture I have to go with this sentence is you and doug in folding chairs sitting next to mercy while she screamed through her timeout [one of MANY that night, most of which involved a great deal of screaming].

“I was especially grateful watching Mercy and Aaron’s carefree play…”

…and now I’m seeing them run behind the barn [a storage shed that the kids call ‘the barn’ that they are NOT allowed to play behind]…oh, and Jordan and Mercy calling each other ’stupid pirates.’

I don’t in any way question the truth of your account of the time, I’m just totally amused at what now passes as a peaceful, relaxing evening for us. =)

And the things is, her descriptions of the “peaceful evening” hardly do the true chaos and craziness of the night, and my children in particular, justice…

By late afternoon yesterday, I had heard more police helicopters in one day than I had ever imagined possible. Along with sirens and cruisers racing down our streets, it was enough to unsettle. We spent the early evening over at my sister’s house in her backyard, enjoying dinner (and lots of space for the kids to run) with our cell group. Her yard felt like an oasis in the midst of all the sirens and commotion in the air and on our streets, and I was grateful for the feelings of peace we enjoyed there. I was especially grateful watching Mercy and Aaron’s carefree play that seemed completely unaffected by the noise.

Later, after running home with Doug to put the kids to bed, I came back to my sister’s house for a special send-off party for three young women in our congregation who are leaving later this week to spend time in Guatemala for intensive Spanish language study. We played a Guatemala trivia game, ate a lot of dessert, and ended our time together by praying for them and their travels.

I was struck by a memory I have shared here before of sitting in a Fuller classroom and overhearing two students discuss how appalling it would be to live in my neighborhood: “Are you kidding me?” she said, with a laugh. “Two single women living in that neighborhood? That would be crazy!”

As I extended my hand toward these three beautiful single young women who have heard God’s call to love their neighbors here in the midst of helicopters, sirens and cruisers, and who have responded to that call to the degree of committing their time and vacations and money to go and learn the language that many of those neighbors speak, I marveled at the beauty of a crazy gospel.

Godspeed, Lauren, Sarah and Sarah.

The kids and I missed church again this week: Aaron was a snot factory (as I like to call it) and I can’t bear to bring my kids to the nursery when they are like that. I see other moms and dads do it, and it almost always means that later in the week we come down with something in our household. So, I decided that we should keep our sniffles to ourselves and instead we spent a nice morning with a good friend and her daughter (who was also sick and avoiding the nursery for the same reasons) here at our house.

We actually took the kids in to see Dr. Jamie this past week because of a strange rash on Mercy. It turns out that there is a 50% chance that she has Fifths Disease, a totally harmless virus that, while having no serious ramifications for the child can be life-threatening to unborn babies in women in the first half of their pregnancies. So, sometime today I will make my way to the OB yet again, this time for a blood test to determine whether or not I have contracted the virus. I was feeling pretty optimistic earlier since Mercy’s rash did not totally look like the pictures I found on the internet, however yesterday Aaron started showing a light rash that is much more in the traditional pattern of Fifths Disease. So, please pray that the virus has not found its way to me and my baby, and pray also for my dear friend who is also in early pregnancy and has been around me and the kids this past week.

Last night Doug took us (and Lauren, the other “mom” in our household!) out for a nice dinner at California Pizza Kitchen in Manhattan Beach. We had a great time, and every manager/assistant manager came to our table (and only ours) at least once to personally greet us and see how our meal was. We couldn’t tell if they thought we were someone we weren’t or if it was just random–there were lots of other families with kids and moms, so it couldn’t have just been the Mothers Day thing. Regardless, it was nice to be treated so well.

After the kids went down, I talked with my mom for a bit and then Doug and I curled up and watched “Akeelah and the Bee.” It is one of those heartwarming stories about the little ghetto girl who achieves the impossible, but it was sweet (made me cry) and fun to watch because so much of it was filmed in our immediate neighborhood. Laurence Fishburne’s house in the film is just up the street on Kenwood, and we remember when they were doing the filming. It’s always interesting to see what our hood looks like on the big screen!

Many often say the reason for this issue [Women in Ministry] today is because some are trying to be “biblical”. But that raises this question: Why pick this biblical issue and not some other? Like the poor (more are awaking on this one I’m happy to say) or the reality of miracles or tongue-speaking (clearly taught and practiced) or the presence of prophesying? Here’s the question as I see it:

Why are some choosing to be “biblical” on this issue and not others in the Western world? And, in light of our lengthy series on women in ministry, why are they choosing to be “narrowly” biblical? That is, why are they focused on 1 Tim 2:11-15 or 1 Cor 14:34-35 and not on “what women did do and making sure that they still can do those things”?

The beginnings of a great conversation on Scot McKnight’s blog this past week…

“Mercy, it’s time to get ready for your night-night.”

“I don’t want to do ANYTHING but NOT take a night-night!”

I love any chance to listen to or read William Willimon, and his most recent blog post on conversion was striking to me. He writes:

Deep in my Wesleyan once warmed heart is a story of how a priggish little Oxford don got changed at Aldersgate and thereafter. John Wesley’s life was well formed, well fixed by a host of positive Christian influences upon him before the evening on Aldersgate Street. Yet what happened afterwards has led us Wesleyans to see his heart “strangely warmed” as nothing less than dramatic ending and beginning, death and birth, a whole new world.

Such a story, fixed deep in our souls, challenges a church that has become accommodated to things as they are, the cultural status quo. It stands as a rebuke to a church that has settled comfortably into a characterization of the Christian life as pleasantly continuous and basically synonymous with being a good person…

A conversionist faith is so disconcerting, particularly to those for whom the world as it is has been fairly good. Those on top, those who are reasonably well fed, fairly well futured, tend to cling to the world as it is rather than risk the possibility of something new. For all these economic, social, and political reasons we pastors tend toward the maintenance of stability rather than the expectation of conversion.

I have some good friends who have never known what it means to live “on top” in their lifetime. They have struggled and suffered and sinned generously, and have experienced much of life as objects of pity and shame. They are people who have encountered a living, healing, transforming God, and oh how I see the truth in Willimon’s words about the power of conversion.

Just the other day, I was talking to one of these friends, and she shared with me how because of knowing Jesus and having his spirit alive in her, she did not become violent in a recent situation where previously she would have. Her words and her body operated under new lordship, she said, and with tears she spoke of how this change felt for her in that moment. I later wept when I considered the darkness I am confronted with inside my own heart right now. My lack of generosity, failure to love, dwindling compassion, whatever… As one who has lived a much more “on top” life than my friend, I marvel at how easy it is to subvert conversion, cling to the old flesh, and miss out on the truly new thing that God would do.

This past week, we noticed a busy little hummingbird outside of the kids’ room windows. The hummingbirds usually buzz around the palm trees, but this one seemed intent on visiting the strand of porch lights. At some point, we realized he/she was building a nest, and we decided that his/her name was Sam. I just dumped photos off of the digital camera this morning and found this one that Doug took the other night when he was out there:

I don’t know what it is, but having Sam move in has touched me with a little sense of peace and even joy. And though Sam is a hummingbird, every time I see him I recall the words of a song we used to sing at Irvington Covenant: “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me…”

A few weeks ago, Doug and I had the privilege of attending an event hosted by Northwest Neighbors that celebrated ten years of their ministry in Northwest Pasadena. As an organization, they do significant work in the lives of youth in their community, ranging from tutoring and mentoring to leadership development and discipleship. They are not a big, flashy organization but rather a small group of people who are choosing to work and raise their children alongside the needy of this community, and to learn what it means to be a blessing in their community. I love the passage from Isaiah 61 that is on their website: “…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”

One of the highlights of the event was hearing from Rudy Carrasco, Executive Director of Harambee Ministries of Pasadena. I have always heard a great deal about Rudy; this was my first time hearing him speak. He is warm and funny and extremely engaging, and toward the end of his message, he said something that has stayed with me. Earlier in the evening, a young woman stood up and gave her testimony of how God had changed her life through the ministries of Northwest Neighbors. She shared that she was in college, and she spoke of what her own dreams and hopes are for her life. We all applauded and celebrated the amazing ways that God has been at work in her life in the midst of some very real challenges. Rudy brought this up at the end of his talk, and he said that we are quick to feel so proud of the achievements of these young people who come out of underprivileged situations and emerge as successful students in community and state colleges.

He said, and this is my paraphrase: “We are so quick to celebrate the amazing feat of these young people getting through adolescence without getting pregnant, or joining gangs, or turning to drugs. We are thrilled by these stories of success.” And then the smile left his face, and he spoke strongly: “How low our expectations are for these young people.” And he went on: “Are those the same expectations we have for our children? Are those the things that would make us proud of our own kids? How little we settle for.”

His words have haunted me on more than one occasion since that event. We had a situation here where people we care deeply for were living in some very substandard conditions for quite some time. But, considering they had spent much of their lives homeless and in worse places, it felt as if them having that place to live was such a victory; one we celebrated often. And they were grateful for it, but again, Rudy’s words haunted me: would it have been okay for any of my family members? Would I have felt okay with Mercy or Aaron living there? Certainly not.