My very own blog!!!!
My first entry!!!!
I've considered this moment for a while and always expected that I would begin some great statement, a sort of "blogifesto" of sorts that might change the world...or at least the internet world...as we know it.
But my first entry has to be about this day.
I set up a class at the Rescue Mission where I preach each Sunday morning. This class is based on the 40 Days of Purpose book by Rick Warren. I wanted to offer the study to the folks going into the Residential Treatment program. What better time to consider what you're here for than while you're trying to kick a heroine, cocaine, or alcohol addiction?
That was part of the equation.
The other part involved who came as my helpers--affluent people. People who go to church every Sunday and believe that the world is basically black and white. Republicans.
And therein laid the chemistry. Because as those good people sat with those good people, something miraculous happened. The scales fell off their eyes (not the homeless guys' eyes, the homed peoples' eyes!) and they saw something they'd never seen before.
"Those people" out there on the streets, struggling with poverty and addiction and life on the downside of things...they are people. And they are worthy of our time and attention.
It is just too easy to revert to a "bootstraps" mentality, expecting people to pull themselves out of the miry clay. It is not easy to sit with them in the dank and skank of the Rescue Mission as you listen to their life stories and not be moved by the reality of "life in the gray regions of humanity."
What does that mean?
It means that it's not all black and white. The day Eve took a chunk out of that apple black and white went away. Gray won the day. And we are left not to deny it, contend with it, or endure it. We are left to love it...and all those who are carried in its wake.
One of my people wrote me an email tonight after she got home. Her words:
"WHAT AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE THAT WAS! I LEARNED SO MUCH FROM THOSE PEOPLE AND FROM YOU. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO MISERABLE SOME OF THIS WEEK WHEN I HEAR FROM THEM? I HAVE HAD SOME DIFFICULT DAYS THIS WEEK AND TONIGHT TAUGHT ME I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT DIFFICULT WAS! THANK YOU FOR INVITING ME TO HELP. I WILL BE THERE NEXT WEEK."
Lifestyles of the poor and disenfranchised! Who woulda thought....
My first entry!!!!
I've considered this moment for a while and always expected that I would begin some great statement, a sort of "blogifesto" of sorts that might change the world...or at least the internet world...as we know it.
But my first entry has to be about this day.
I set up a class at the Rescue Mission where I preach each Sunday morning. This class is based on the 40 Days of Purpose book by Rick Warren. I wanted to offer the study to the folks going into the Residential Treatment program. What better time to consider what you're here for than while you're trying to kick a heroine, cocaine, or alcohol addiction?
That was part of the equation.
The other part involved who came as my helpers--affluent people. People who go to church every Sunday and believe that the world is basically black and white. Republicans.
And therein laid the chemistry. Because as those good people sat with those good people, something miraculous happened. The scales fell off their eyes (not the homeless guys' eyes, the homed peoples' eyes!) and they saw something they'd never seen before.
"Those people" out there on the streets, struggling with poverty and addiction and life on the downside of things...they are people. And they are worthy of our time and attention.
It is just too easy to revert to a "bootstraps" mentality, expecting people to pull themselves out of the miry clay. It is not easy to sit with them in the dank and skank of the Rescue Mission as you listen to their life stories and not be moved by the reality of "life in the gray regions of humanity."
What does that mean?
It means that it's not all black and white. The day Eve took a chunk out of that apple black and white went away. Gray won the day. And we are left not to deny it, contend with it, or endure it. We are left to love it...and all those who are carried in its wake.
One of my people wrote me an email tonight after she got home. Her words:
"WHAT AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE THAT WAS! I LEARNED SO MUCH FROM THOSE PEOPLE AND FROM YOU. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO MISERABLE SOME OF THIS WEEK WHEN I HEAR FROM THEM? I HAVE HAD SOME DIFFICULT DAYS THIS WEEK AND TONIGHT TAUGHT ME I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT DIFFICULT WAS! THANK YOU FOR INVITING ME TO HELP. I WILL BE THERE NEXT WEEK."
Lifestyles of the poor and disenfranchised! Who woulda thought....
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