Summer Blessings

A number of blessings have come my way lately.

First, the boys have been having what Joe called “the best summer ever.” That really hit me hard. Melissa got sick when Joe was 2. The summer just before he turned three he had to go to day care all summer long, a place he had never been. We had tried to keep the boys from having to go to day care. So when Joe had to go, to be away from mommy, to not get to roll around and snuggle, play at her feet… There he stood day after day when we left him, confused, crying, and John standing there with his arms around him, trying to comfort him. It was hard for John, too. He was a little older, but was also used to being at home, having lots of attention.

So, the summers: 2004 had brought the huge change of moving to Louisville and a kind of ministry that was not so family-friendly. 2005 was the abrupt change to others taking care of them. 2006 brought Melissa’s first long absences and the devastating physical impacts of bone marrow transplant. 2007 was trying to live with her death. So four summers have been pretty much a wash for them. Lots of back and forth. It has been an incredibly trying time, balancing all the things going on, but trying to stay focused on the little guys, carving out good chunks of time with and for them.

So what is it about this summer, 2008? For all the changes, it’s business as usual, the way it ought to be. When Jessica became something of a fixture in our lives, when she and I thought it would be safe for her to be around, something in the little jokers smoothed out. And when we were married and she moved in (her “sleepover” the boys were waiting for), things got calm. Not like they quit being energetic rambunctious boys, but little things you notice when you’re around them a lot. Things like Joe being happy that he can be in the middle when he comes into our bed in the morning. Both of them needed a woman to cuddle up next to when they wake up, can’t sleep, or get hurt. They both have had something restored. They have a mom again, and that means a lot to them when they go out; they can say they have a mom. She has gone from being “Jessie,” to “Ica-mommy” to “mommy” most days.

Yesterday John said, “now that we don’t have to deal with school, every day is like Saturday. Yesterday was Saturday. Today is Saturday. Tomorrow is Saturday.” It’s getting up late, playing outside, going to the park or pool, coming home to rest and eat, taking two baths because they’re so nasty that one won’t do. Jessica stays home with them, and they get to know her, she gets to know them, and they have that place of peace and calm and love.

Another thing: they are fascinated with anointing oil. I have some at the house, and they like to kneel with me at my prayer altar. They anoint me with oil. Joe says, “Thank you Jesus for beards and mustaches.” John says, “Lord, please forgive Daddy of all his sins.” Can you ask for any more than meeting the boys at the prayer altar and being anointed by them?

Sustainable/Community

For a segment of the Christian circles I run in, “community” and “sustainability” are buzzwords. What has crossed my mind about those circles (not the only ones to talk about “community” and “sustainability”) is that there is an answer staring us in the face that we don’t want: The Amish.

I’m not talking about a sentimental picture or visiting Amish country. “Sustainability” and “community” probably go together, and it could be that the Amish questions about technology tie them together.

What if we can’t keep eating like we do? By “eating,” I mean not just what we eat but how and where it is produced.

What if the things that breakdown “community”—cars, phones, this blog—are also the enemies of sustainability?

It’s a thought experiment with and about the Amish, really. At some point, they were technologically on par with the rest of America. At one time, horses provided transportation and draft power for farms. Somewhere in history, the Amish said no to most forms of mechanization. They asked a critical question: will this or that enhance neighborliness or diminish it?

It seems to me that it comes down to choice. The more you can choose who you hang around, the less neighborliness there is. If you can choose someone across the world on the internet, you don’t know your neighbor. If you can drive across town to see friends, chances are, your neighbors won’t be your friends.

Such choices have their benefits—neighbors can be freaks or dangerous, you may not want to get involved with them. But there is a downside as well. I have been on Highland Park for about 10 months now, and have more than a Hi-How-Are-You relationship with only 3 neighbors. It is hard to break in. They don’t need to know me, and, sadly, don’t need to equals don’t want to.

As long as we are leading such separate lives, we’ll be stuck chasing after what we can get how we can get it. And that’s not sustainable, at least not the way some might like to define it. I think sometimes it gets defined in such a way that makes some kind of disaster seem inevitable because so many are hungering for some kind of different life, don’t have it and maybe an apocalypse will spur them and us on to it.

Be that as it may, “sustainability” and “community” will be very hard to achieve. We want to keep doing what we have been doing, living like we have been living, but somehow make it sustainable. What if we had to adopt many Amish ways to find community and be sustainable?

Or is that we want to differentiate ourselves, to create some gluttonous “other,” and then ascribe Holiness to ourselves? It may not be sustainable to keep talking about sustainability.

Shakespeare and the City, and other signs of the Apocalypse

In Shakespeare’s day, the actors were all men or young boys, so the women were played by men. This gave rise to some fun the author and actors could have with the audience. In As You Like It, for example, a female character dresses up as a male to be able to be with the man she loves. There is great fun in the play (and one assumes in the audience) to recognize and toy with a male actor playing a woman who dresses as a man…

I can’t believe I have to pull for the Celtics. By family obligation, I pull for West Coast teams. Or I should say, any West Coast team not from San Francisco. Our obligations are with Los Angeles. My favorite football team is the Raiders, but that’s ok, because they are not in San Fran, and for a few shining years played in L.A. In the glory days of the 80s, my bets friend (a Celtics fan) would replay the series one-on-one in the heat of Mississippi. But I just can’t stand Kobe Bryant.

Oh, and Tubby is the best coach UK ever had. The finals were guaranteed to have one of his players in it—Rondo or Prince. Nuff said, all you haters.

Back in college, me and some other guys wanted to be writers. I had one of those terrible realizations. I spent all summer writing, to come up with publishable material. I treated it like a job—waking up and writing til the afternoon. I lived in an apartment with 3 other people, and rent was $75 a month. That was the summer I lived on peanut butter. Then I discovered it would be hard to be a writer. One, I was not so good, and two, John Kennedy Toole had written the very book I was working on that summer…

Well, one of our friends found a way to make some real cash writing. He wrote porn for Penthouse and was really bringing down some jack. The crazy thing: he was gay. He told me how he pulled it off, and because there are delicate eyes out there, call me and I’ll tell you what he said. Anyway, I have laughed about that for years, told people the basics of the story and said, leave the porn alone, you never know who’s really getting in your head.

With this Sex and The City thing, the joke’s on us. Sex and the City, a la Shakespeare, is the fantasies of gay men about what it would be like to be a hot nympho with an unlimited shoe budget. Hopefully guys don’t want, and gals don’t want to be, drag queens.

Annual Conference Dispatch

Ok, so this is the second Annual Conference without Melissa. Last year, she had been gone for about 3 weeks. Last year was the first year the boys missed Conference. Some of our best memories are from Annual Conference—some games we still play were invented at Annual Conference.

I am sitting pretty much in the same place I was sitting last year when I blogged a bit—at the Starbucks near Fourth Street Live, where I saw the Russian couple being all lovey-dovey. I took the chance to get away for a while to talk to some folks there’s not enough time with—Bill Hughes, Bill Kidwell, DG Hollums. And, oh, Leonard Sweet was there, too. I eavesdropped on him and DG’s conversation.

It has been a good conference. I like conference, seeing people I have not seen in a while. I get frustrated that here we all are together and we really need to get moving on being vital and we get sapped by too much procedure. I have no clue what the answer to that one is. I just know we need to get pumped up and challenged to reach the world for Christ. Leonard Sweet hit on a lot of that in his presentation—about the hostility of the world to the church, about the hard times, the pressure of being a minister. So many pastors are worn out and freaked out. They have a lot of education, put in a lot of hours, and the church in America is dying. What gives?

A lot of it is re-learning, I think. I think many pastors thought they could just show up, be a pastor and church would keep running. But in the end, you have to pound the streets, feed the hungry in Jesus’ name, and preach the gospel of sin, repentance, the Kingdom, and Holiness. Mostly, we talk about the Kingdom, and we do so in terms that make people think anyone can get in if they just want to. We don’t want to talk about sin or repentance.

Maybe, since so much of the world is hostile to the message of Christ, maybe we just need to go ahead and say, “yes, the church is your enemy. The way you are currently living is not a life we can endorse. So naturally, there will be tension in our relationship.” We have spent way too much time trying to make people like us. Finding ways to “repackage” the gospel. Instead of being comfortable, maybe we should just come out and say what we believe, and still live among the people. The best relationships I have in the community are with 3 people who flat out can’s stand the church and what they know of the gospel. What drives me is that I want them to know the truth before it’s too late. But uh-oh! That means that I believe some things that most Americans, most Christians even dislike (and here you can check for yourself): I believe in Hell. It’s where sinners who do not repent and turn to Jesus go. Jesus is the only way to heaven (not Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Canaanite religion, or New Guinea tribal faith).

Yesterday was the Memorial Service. Melissa was honored, and I had a part in the service, reading Scripture. It was not hard, because I believe what the Scriptures say. A few people were wondering if it was hard for Jessie. I can’t express to you how wonderful she is. She came to a memorial service for Melissa. She lets me talk about Melissa as much as I need to. She looks through pictures with the boys, asking them to remember Melissa to her. So, while it is hard, God is also good. I am remembering a weird moment at Conference last year. Melissa was friends with Rose King, the bishop’s wife. Rose was very good to Melissa during her illness. Anyway, when Rose saw me last year, she took me aside and said something like, “Melissa was a wonderful woman. But this work of ministry is going to be too hard for you to do alone. God is going to provide another wife for you.” I was shocked. Not in a bad way—a few people I told this to thought she was insensitive. Not me. I appreciated that she knew Melissa and spoke from the heart.

So here we are, Annual Conference. Rose sees me processing out from the Memorial Service. She grabs my hand and holds me a second. I thanked her for all her support, for cards, visits, stuffed animals for the boys. Remembering our last conversation, she said, “God has provided for you and those boys. I am so glad you did not wait.”

Annual Conference is a good thing. A fun thing, even. I think we should add a few days and then we could all meet together and hatch crazy plans for ministry! The future probably means more cooperation between pastors and churches.

The Struggle

Sunday, I said to Steve McKinney, “it’s going to be a good summer.” I was all hyped up about the warm weather, the pretty skies, the green everywhere that comes with summer. As soon as I said it, though, I regretted saying it. This dark cloud popped up, and I began thinking, “how can you be so naïve? You have no idea what could happen. You thought moving to Louisville was a good idea. You thought you and Melissa would have grandkids running around…” on and on it went, to things like, “Who knows what could happen to John or Joe? Sure Jessica is young, but…”

It really got to me the rest of the day.

But then I had an insight. I do think it will be a good summer. I can’t explain to you, except by faith, why I am basically happy. You can have all kinds of good things in your life, along with bad, and come out some kind of balance of all that. But sometimes you find your way to joy through the Holy Spirit. And strength comes from that place.

I determined not to let the evil one have any kind of laugh. He can kiss my butt. It is going to be a good summer, come what may. That kind of faith drives the evil one nuts, and it keeps me going.

Goat Dinner

I am totally freaked out by what happened tonight, by how the Lord blessed us. We had our Thursday night dinner, but we did it in the garden. Mapigano was cooking—goat kabobs. People weren’t real sure what to think, but everyone that tried it really liked it.

Ok, so all week, I was asking people, thinking that having it in the garden is a little less intimidating for a guest than having it at my house. So I asked Stephanie and her kids (Jessie is becoming friends with Stephanie, and her daughter is in John’s class.) I asked Cliff and his family.

Leo worked like a dog with me setting up tables and chairs, getting it all ready.

Mapigano, Gabin, and Don Ellis put the kebabs together.

Over 60 people came. 19 of them were first-time visitors. People came off the street. One family came because Cliff told them about it! I was totally freaked out. Mapigano and I were cooking, and of course not getting to eat, and so we set aside some kabobs for us. We ate off the same kabob, and there was something intense in that, pulling goat off the stick it was like communion.

So there we were, young and old (there must have been 25 kids there. It looked like school was in session!) Eating goat. African, Hispanic, Anglo, African-American. Over the fire, I joked with Madame Itoula that one day there will be so many Africans in America that we’ll all eat goat and think we invented it, because finally, that’s what makes us so strong—everyone comes and adds to the potluck.

So I had lots of opportunity to witness, to invite. Lots of time to laugh, and just be as relaxed as I ever get. You know, you could start a church with all the people we had. Man, how I would love it if every Sunday , 1/3 of the people were brand new, didn’t know Jesus. It works if you work it.

I wish I could be really eloquent in this description. But I think I am too blown away that this many people came, that we ate that much goat, that kids played so hard without fighting, that groups were forming that we’ve never seen before.

And get this: Foti let us hook up the hose at his house, and the garden got watered. Can you believe it? We’re cooking goat, loving Jesus, talking, watering. My goodness, all we did was plant some seeds and plants. What’s going on here!?

I need to give a shout out to my kids who carried tables from the garden to the church: Samstress, Elijon, Seamus, Matthew. They work hard for me and it’s really something to see.

Fish in a barrel

So Cliff and I are hatching plans. When he came to work in the garden, we got to talking about crazy schemes to deal with high food prices.

EXCURSUS: Back in the day (about 20 years ago), I was convinced things would get bad in this country, and it would be necessary to learn to survive. So I went on a crash course of gardening, hunting, and fishing. The latter two are not the best ways to survive—useful here and there, but not long-term. I also was interested in alternative forms of energy and food production. One that really pumped me up was growing fish, either in a pond or tanks. I think you could make a killing raising trout and selling them.

Back to me and Cliff. So this idea that we should really be learning about raising fish is going somewhere. Cliff comes back to the garden with a 55-gallon metal drum. He can get them from work and he cleans them with steam from the steam plant at UK, where he works. And get this, this is how easy it is:

Get a metal drum. Cover it with a glass top. Put in a pump that aerates the water. Grow catfish. Like 40 in a barrel. Drain out 5 gallons a day from the bottom to get rid of waste. Add water back. The waste is largely nitrogen, so use it to water your garden plants!!! Oh, and catfish love worms. So grow worms—feed them your table scraps (Joe Dongell, the guy who married me and Jessie, is the worm guru in these parts!). So you raise worms that make compost for the garden and feed your catfish, and the waste water feeds your garden. And a 25-ounce catfish yields 1 lb. of meat. My guess is the worm bins and fish barrel take up 15 sq. feet tops. Everyone has room for this in their backyard.

Can you imagine the savings to the families that need it? I mean, what if we taught people to garden and raise catfish? They could put high quality protein on the table for next to nothing.

If you have followed the news about high prices and the apocalyptic mindset it puts some folks in, you’ll notice that the “survival” mentality usually moves out to the hills and sets up an isolated base. They are out of the way to avoid people, the hordes that they see rampaging thru cities when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator. The sensibility is very much surviving for self. There will come a time for that, I suspect. But there is a chance that we can teach people here in town to grow a little bit here and there, to offset the high costs, to go to almost no cost, because God just makes things grow!!!! I wonder if we could begin that process whereby we get back to one of the most powerful evangelistic witnesses the church has ever had: the pagan Pliny wrote of the 2nd century Christians, “there are no poor people among them… if someone is hungry, the rest will fast until there is enough to eat…” And perhaps we could teach people how to garden rather than just giving them some tomatoes.

I think about Cliff a lot, how he is kind of the point of the direction of the Rock. We’re trying to make a push into the community, to be the church in and for the community. Generally, churches have not known what to do with neighborhoods like ours, ones that are on the downhill slide. We abandon them, or our worshippers come from outside the neighborhood. There’s nothing wrong with people coming from outside, but if it means that we don’t worship with people from the neighborhood (i.e., we can’t just provide social services for them; they should be the bulk of our worship—can we welcome them back in their own neighborhood?), we have a problem. I have said repeatedly that the people who know best what the community needs are the ones who live here. And in Cliff’s case, as we talk about the impact of high gas and food prices, he knows the impact in personal, daily ways. And when we talk about possible solutions, he is right there with the equipment and the willingness. We just may figure this thing out.

All that was a few days ago. We just had our awesome dinner in the garden, and Cliff and I spent some more time talking, and I think we are just going to go for it in his yard. He’ll be the pilot program. He wants to raise some serious fish. Man, this is getting out of hand. Me, Jessie, and our neighbor Tom are going to get some beehives. It hit me. I have a card I pass out with the vegetables that says, “taste and see that the Lord is good,” from Psalm 34. I started thinking how cool it would be to pass out some natural honey, in little jars with a little bit of honeycomb in it. “The law of the Lord is perfect, the ordinances of the Lord are sure… they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb” from Psalm 19. Cliff said that if we could start multiplying fishes it would be like “passing out love.” I about fell over. He gets it better than I do!