The Margins

“We see that our poverty is as absolute as that of the poorest of nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and share our material wealth with those in need.”

Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart (via Dick Staub)

We told you about the tragic death of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez who died while laboring in a Stockton area vineyard in 100 plus degree heat. According to a Wednesday AP story, the San Joaquin County Coroner has officially confirmed that Maria died of heat stroke. Maria had been working 8 hours in the blistering heat without shade or sufficient water. The closest water supply was a 10 minute walk away.

At 3:40 p.m. Maria became dizzy. She didn’t know where she was and didn’t recognize Florentino. Maria passed out.  Florentino helplessly held her in his arms.

After a number of delays Maria was taken to a clinic. On the in Lodi, the foreman called on the driver’s cell phone and spoke to Florentino. “If you take her to a clinic,” the foreman said, “don’t say she was working [for the contractor]. Say she became sick because she was jogging to get exercise. Since she’s underage, it will create big problems for us.”

Maria’s temperature upon arriving at the hospital was 108.6.  After two days and six heart stoppages, she died.

“The cost of something is that amount of life which must be exchanged for it.”

From Sonja Andrews

Lauren came over yesterday evening to help me with bedtime for the boys while Doug ran Mercy to our pediatrician’s office with a suspected ear infection (this was the first time that Mercy informed us of an ear-ache BEFORE 2am so we were grateful). Lauren was getting ready to run to the corner store with the baby to buy drinks for my new members class I was teaching last night when she said to me: “Hey, guess who was at VeggieSoul today?”

VeggieSoul is, as the name indicates, a vegetarian Soul Food joint, and it occupies the other half of the storefront where our tutoring program is located.

I could not fathom who Lauren could be talking about. Our neighborhood is not known for frequent star sightings. “Who?” I asked.

“Stevie Wonder.”

Apparently one of the summer interns spotted him and called the others to the door where they crowded around to see him and a buddy grab some food and take off in a shiny SUV. He lives in L.A. and Doug told me that his studio is a few blocks to the north of us in Koreatown.

Stevie Wonder at VeggieSoul. Awesome.

I once heard someone say that there is no such thing as “a sense of ownership”. That resonates with me as I think through all of the times I have seen a group with power create the image or illusion that that power is shared when the reality is that it is not. Put plainly, a “sense of ownership” is just that: the illusion of being a stakeholder.

The other night, I was at a meeting to evaluate a recent week-long ministry project we had done in partnership with Pasadena Covenant Church. Three youth from our church who had volunteered during the week showed up for the meeting (I was not expecting them), and each one actively shared their thoughts, concerns, and suggestions for what went well and what could be changed or improved for next year.

Our good friend and board chair was the facilitator of the meeting, and I so appreciated how he received these youth and their ideas. I have been in enough meetings where the leader is very obviously humoring some participant and not really taking seriously what they have to say, and that was not remotely our friend’s approach. He made sure that space was made for their comments; he listened intently and asked follow-up questions; he complimented them for their insights. They were never rushed; he never grew impatient or “accidentally” looked over their waving hands; they were treated with honor.

That meeting was a good reminder for me of the kind of listener and leader I want to be. I can be tempted by impatience, and as much as I say that I am not an “efficiency” person, I can be tempted there too.

I am reminded of the story Henri Nouwen tells at the beginning and end of his tiny book, In the Name of Jesus. It is the story of him being convicted by Jesus’ practice of sending out the disciples in two’s and thus making the decision to travel to deliver the series of lectures that became this book with Bill, one of the disabled members of his community. Nouwen shares honestly about the limitations in his imagination of what “doing it together” could really mean in this situation, and poignantly about Bill’s own sense of partnership with him in his work. The conclusion of the story always leaves me in tears: the vision of Nouwen standing before a prestigious gathering, Bill at his side, taking each page of Nouwen’s lecture as he would finish, and interjecting occasionally with a thought or comment to add to Nouwen’s powerful words.

Nouwen concludes the story with this thought: “Then I realized the full truth of Jesus’ words, ‘Where two or three meet in my Name, I am among them’ (Matthew 18:19). In the past, I had always given lectures, sermons, addresses, and speeches by myself. Often I had wondered how much of what I had said would be remembered. Now it dawned on me that most likely much of what I said would not be long remembered, but that Bill and I doing it together would not easily be forgotten.”

This past Sunday I was a guest preacher at a church in Simi Valley which is something I actually enjoy doing. I was nervous about the length of my sermon (sermons at our church are at least forty-five minutes) and did end up cutting quite a bit from what I had planned to say. My good friend who is the pastor there kept telling me not to worry about going over, but I just really didn’t want to be that guest preacher who goes way too long (especially on a hot summer morning).

At the conclusion of the service, my friend hustled us out a side door so that we could position ourselves at the exit so as to greet the church members as they left the sanctuary. I told Bruce that I felt a bit like I was at a wedding (though Doug and I did not have a receiving line, so really I didn’t know what I was talking about!), but it was great to meet so many wonderful folks from this church family.

My favorite comment of the morning came from an elderly gentleman who, by my account, was probably the oldest person there. He said to me: “There are three things I appreciated about you this morning….”

I honestly don’t remember the first two things that he said because the third was so amusing. “Usually when the women preach, I just can’t understand what they are saying. They run their words together and have these soft voices and I just can’t follow what they are saying. But you spoke and it was loud and clear and I could hear all of your words, so thank you.”

I laughed and thanked him and told him that yes, I do have a bigger voice than some, and I was glad my words had been clear enough for him to follow.

I’m the girl who gets her wireless mic on and the minute I start to speak has some poor sound guy in the back scrambling to adjust me because he clearly expected my voice to be smaller. I’m not sure when I realized that my voice was lower than a lot of other women, or when I figured out that not everyone can project their voice as loudly as I can. I did some drama here and there growing up and certainly that taught me something about the use of my voice. And my freshman year in college I was hired by a radio station to be on the air every Saturday but even then I’m not sure how aware I was that I had a good “voice”.

One funny memory I have is of a gathering at Dick Staub’s house many years ago where I was the only female present for a meeting of the minds around some of Dick’s vision for Christians engaging the culture. I hadn’t spoken up much that morning (I’m not a big talker in groups as I have shared here), and when it was time to break for lunch, Dick asked me if I would pray. I don’t remember there being anything that special about the prayer, but when I finished the room was silent and everyone was staring at me. Because of Dick’s broadcasting gifts we had been discussing some different radio show options, and I think it was Stan Grenz who made some comment about how we wouldn’t have to look very far for a woman who could be on the air with Dick.

It is interesting to consider the ease I have experienced as a preacher and teacher. I wonder about the elderly gentleman’s comment and how much simple genetics have come to play in all of that.

I got a call yesterday from a good friend who suddenly had two tickets available to see Stevie Wonder at the Hollywood Bowl. We managed to line up childcare (thank you, Lauren!) and we met up with four good friends from the neighborhood and headed out to the show. The traffic and parking were crazy, as they can be at the Hollywood Bowl, and after a long line to have bags checked (no alcohol or bottles were allowed for this show which was disappointing–sipping your wine is simply part of the HB experience, and we had brought a nice bottle of Toasted Head we had planned to enjoy), we made it to our seats right as Stevie began his introduction. We were settled and ready by the first note played.

The show was amazing. He is an incredible performer and the stage was filled with an orchestra, various family members, and all of the energy and passion a performer like him brings to his craft.

It turned out that our seats were in the “Toasted Head” section of another variety: I hadn’t been around that much pot smoke since a Beastie Boys concert in Chicago.

Doug and I realized that it was the first concert we had been to together, ever. That was hard for both of us to believe as we could each rattle off a long list of live performances we have seen over the years, but none that we had seen together.

All in all it was a magical evening: great music, great friends, an incredible venue, an unforgettable show.

The other day I was checking the Homicide Blog when I noticed the banner at the top of the page showed a happy couple enjoying a beautiful sunset in an ad for the Ritz Carlton. What a crazy juxtaposition.

Things have been fairly quiet lately in our neighborhood, though some areas immediately surrounding us have suffered a great deal of violence. Our senior lead officer reported that there was a shooting south of us that resulted in a retaliatory shooting just two blocks form our house. Three people were shot in the head, but remarkably no one was seriously injured. I am not quite sure how that is possible, but I am thankful.

The Fourth was really, really loud, and Aaron was not a fan of “the hitting” as he called the large and frequent explosions around us. It is amazing how loud a string of M-80s can be, especially when you are laying in a toddler bed holding your crying son. We spent the afternoon around the corner with friends, eating good food and drinking some yummy “grown up lemonade” (aka, Mojitos). The kids were in their swimsuits until almost nine o’clock, and Mercy loved the colors and lights of everything form the sparklers to the big showy fireworks from the Coliseum nearby.

The next day I was talking with a neighbor and I found out that some kids who have been back in the neighborhood lately, whom I have enjoyed talking to and spending time with outside lately, pulled a guy out of a car while it was moving and beat him with a baseball bat. At two o’clock in the afternoon. In front of our house.

One of the things that always strikes me is that almost incomprehensible juxtaposition between what childhood and youth should look like and what I see happen around me in the lives of our young people: kids who one moment are throwing water balloons and playing on skateboards and the next, beating someone’s head in with a bat. What kind of raging conflict and confusion they must have inside of them.

I remember a book I read in college about the Henry Horner Housing project in Chicago where I volunteered. It was titled: “There Are no Children Here.” Sometimes that is how I feel, when I hear kids talk about what their lives have been, and when I consider what they have witnessed and absorbed. And yet they do still function as children: they play; they get excited about the ice cream truck; they tease and laugh and flirt. They are still children, but children living beneath shadows of things that seek to rob and kill and destroy. They are surrounded by loud and scary things, and many of them do not have the comfort of someone to hold them while they cry in the dark. But there are children here.

We spent the day at the beach with our church family and lots of new kids and parents we are getting to know through our summer program and the special week of sports and arts camps we just hosted with Pasadena Covenant Church. It was Elijah’s first real beach outing and he LOVED sitting in the ocean with Dad while the waves rolled over them. Mercy continues to be the “water demon” whose fearlessness once caught Kiefer Sutherland’s attention, and Aaron is happiest when surrounded by multiple scoops and bottles and things to fill with sand.

On the way home in the van, both of the boys passed out while Mercy managed to beat all odds and stay wide awake throughout our extended drive home. We drove a ways to hit a drive-through Starbucks, and because Mercy was awake, she got a blueberry muffin as a treat. When she had finished eating, Mercy made the comment that Aaron was going to be so jealous that she had eaten a muffin and he had not. Doug took the moment to give Mercy a small lecture on the value of sleep and rest and how maybe Aaron had made the better choice.

Mercy was quiet for a while, and Doug and I resumed talking when I heard a thoughtful voice behind me say:

“But my choice was the yummiest.”

Eugene Cho posted a link to a Relevant Magazine article on materialism where seven Christian leaders respond to the question of how to follow Jesus in an age that worships mammon. Shane Claiborne’s response struck a chord with my own experience of who I care about and why:

What is enough is defined by our relationship to our neighbor—if our neighbor has four cars, then we think we are living simply if we have two cars. If our neighbor doesn’t have water, then two cars is probably too many. We have this command to love our neighbor as ourselves, but I think the great tragedy of our culture is that we are pushed away from suffering, away from poverty to the point that it’s enough if we give a tax-exempt donation or volunteer for a week out of the year. And yet if we’re really in relationship with people who are suffering, that messes with us.

Just last night, I had a conversation with someone who had heard of a ministry need related to Servant Partner’s work in urban slum communities around the world. This individual had felt stirred by God’s spirit, in the context of a relationship, to respond in a way that resources could be freed up to help support a missionary couple in their continued work among the poor. That proximity that Shane describes made the difference in linking this person’s resources with a unique ministry need.

I think about the times I have been made aware of a friend’s need and how natural and easy it is to respond. Those of us with small children here often take care of each other’s kids. When someone is sick, it is a normal thing to offer meals or a trip to the store for Gatorade or medicine. And even when the needs are much greater, we still respond to our friends with generosity and sacrifice.

Just yesterday in the mail I received Whitworth University’s (Doug’s alma mater) alumni magazine that profiled a couple who gave birth to quadruplets this past year and the incredible ways their community of friends from Whitworth have stood by them and joined with them in caring for this generous, but challenging, gift from God. And I think of my own experience of the past year and the ways my community surrounded our family and served us with extraordinary measures of practical care and help. I can also recall situations where we were in deep financial need and friends stepped in with financial gifts that perfectly met our needs. And in smaller measure, Doug and I have done the same for others whose needs have come before us.

I recall the words of a woman writing about her experience in a college ministry that sought to be inclusive of other ethnic groups on campus. She describes the group’s strategies involving special food and music and affinity groupings employed and then says this:
You just need to be a friend - I say.
You don’t need none of that stuff
You’re being fake
–– people always know a fake
——Why don’t you try to just be real
And…Why is it that you have “white only” friends?

But they just kept on with their trying
Cause no one really wants different friends

I like Shane’s point about proximity, and I think I would add to it my friend’s challenge about whether any of us really want different friends.

There is a very tender expression that Aaron uses with me right now that I already know I will miss. Sometimes when we walk into a new place he feels a bit shy (he is like his Mommy in this way), and he will stop and burrow into my legs, saying: “Hold me.” Every time he asks this I am reminded of most of a year of holding my little Aaron that was lost to hernias and car accidents and bed-rest and a C-section, and I am eager to respond.

Yet most often I am already holding Elijah in my arms (or pushing Elijah in the stroller) so I will tell him: “I can hold your hand, Aaron.” As I reach down to hold his hand he will wriggle free and declare: “No, Mommy! Hold my WHOLE self.”

I recently attended a fundraising workshop sponsored by Mission Increase Foundation (an excellent organization committed to helping Christian non-profits build capacity), and the topic was how organizations manage information surrounding donors and their gifts. Our facilitator, Matt Bates, told a story about a large rescue mission that regularly received hundreds of gifts daily from donors around the world. Inside many of the checks sent to this organization were personal notes from the donors. Because all of the checks were processed in a separate office from the rest of the organization, largely by temp workers, the notes from faithful donors piled up in a corner, unread and forgotten.

As Matt reflected with us on the value of those forgotten notes and the journeys of individual donors they represent, he said this: “If you create a system that is transactional, then your relationships will become transactional.”

How true that is, really. I think about many critiques of the church today, and so much of the dissatisfaction I hear is the very thing Matt is describing. Transactional systems resulting in transactional relationships.