A Break

After baking all day Saturday, my team and I set up our bake sale in front of our church and hoped for the best.

The result was $350 going toward our team fundraising goal!

This trimester has seemed so short. I came back from Christmas break in early January and I'm already preparing to go back to Phoenix for Spring Break this Friday. After this there's the last four month haul, no breaks.

While I'm in Phoenix for a week I will be meeting with folks to discuss future intentional community plans in the Glendale/Phoenix area, as well as getting together for game nights and potlucks.

Phoenix is home for me in a way Houston can't be. I felt the desire to root myself in a place and build relationships with people, and I knew Phoenix was that place. I know I will continually be led back.

However, it's strange to think about life after this community we've formed here in Fifth Ward.

 

 

Unexpected Life

You know that feeling you get when you've been awake way too long, when your defenses go down and things just seem a little...sillier?

That's how I've felt all week.

Yesterday was ridiculous. I thought I was going to fall asleep on my keyboard. My eyes felt like grapes being squeezed by some sadistic giant. I couldn't focus. I couldn't work. I couldn't concentrate on anything of any significance.

What's the point of even being here? I wondered.

My plan today was to come in and watch episodes of New Girl in a back cubicle of the office.
That's how done I felt.

Then I checked my email.

In December of last year, I wrote a grant application for the creation of a farmer's market in my food-desert neighborhood. It was the first grant I ever wrote, and I did not think anything would come of it because it was my first one. I think I even botched some of the numbers on the budget.

Today when I opened my email I was greeted with a letter saying I had received the grant!

If there was any day I needed that encouragement, today was it. Being able to see that hours of my work are bearing fruit for the community projects I am invested in is such a beautiful feeling. Things are happening. Projects are moving forward.

In addition to that awesome news, my coworker, Krystal, has decided to adopt one of the stray dogs in the neighborhood!

There are dozens of stray dogs that roam the Fifth Ward, just waiting for someone to love on them. My roommate Taylor has a special heart for these dogs and is always trying to convince people she meets to adopt them. Well, today she convinced Krystal. Max will be heading to his new home today.

And, as a little added bonus to this blog, check out a video Taylor made to give our church a little bit of a glimpse into our intentional community's every day lives.

Stepping Over the Line

“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.” 

-- Henri J.M. Nouwen

During my community's weekly meetings, we have a time for individuals to voice concerns about the community, about the way things are being done, about how an individual feels about certain aspects of the community, etc. Last night, one of my housemates brought up the idea of holding ourselves to the same expectations we hold others to. The conversation was specifically about "profane" words, but the concept went so much farther than that. She mentioned that people in our community had come to her expressing their discomfort and even offense at a certain word she had casually been using. Once it was brought to her attention, she began to filter herself, acknowledging that the word offended others, and avoiding it. But she also brought up another idea. She wanted it to be known that now that she had been asked to filter this word, she also had the right to ask others to filter their words. And they should oblige if they have asked that of her. She expects people to hold themselves to the same standard they hold for her.

We have had similar discussions about words in this community. There are seven of us from seven different backgrounds and upbringings, trying to figure out how to love one another without conforming them to ourselves, trying to make space for each other to grow into our true selves and peel away the layers of lies and biases we have grown up with. While typical "curse words" may be offensive to some, they are a freedom for others who have no attachment to those words, who perhaps grew up hearing those words and use them as a form of self expression.

Words cannot be our dividing line, a boundary that creates the "other," ignoring our common desire to love God and love people even with all our baggage, all our scars, all our history. The seven of us are living in this house in order to learn how to better love God and love people, whatever that means. And while I would love to hold others to standards and expectations that would make my life a little easier, I cannot do that if I am not willing to hold those same expectations of myself.

When I wonder why my roommate can't love me better in the place I am at, I wonder, "Am I loving her as well as I could in the place she is at?"

When I want others to listen to me, to hear me, and to not argue or debate, I have to ask myself, "Am I listening as well as I can, without judgment, without argument, without debate? Am I listening in order to listen?"

When I want to be loved, unconditionally, without fear of judgment, I have to ask myself, "Am I loving unconditionally, without judging or making assumptions?"

So I guess it really comes back to that plank in my eye, the one that will always be there, because I will never be able to see a person or a situation clearly from every angle. I will always have my own biases, assumptions, judgments, and expected outcomes. I will never see clearly enough to judge correctly.

My solution to this is to cultivate silence within myself, to silence the voices of judgement and the desire to tell others they are wrong, the desire to tell others how they should be living. And to ask questions. My assumptions will never be correct. EVER. I need to ask questions in order to understand what others are thinking, feeling, and going through. That is where compassion arises. When I enter into the pain and history of the "other" --whether it is my housemate or someone I hardly know-- I am allowing space for compassion, for my own pain to arise and mingle with theirs, to join in mutual understanding that we are not better than one another, that I have nothing to bring against them, that I have nothing to offer but my broken self, that it is I who need their forgiveness for the assumptions and judgments I had already created in my heart and mind. I need to step over the lines I have already created, that have been created by my culture and my upbringing, in order to enter into dialogue with the "other," not to change them, but to realize I am them, and we are in this together.

 “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” 

― Henri J.M. Nouwen

Also, check out this beautiful, short article about the assumptions we make, and how it hurts us all. 

What the Hell is Water?

"The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."

- Albert Einstein

In a commencement speech at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace told the new graduates, "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?""

So it is with us.

"If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious."

It's about learning to think, to question, to seek. 

In our education system and our churches, we are told mostly what to think, not how to think. We are not taught how to properly question, because those who question are deemed heretics and communists, and our fear of what those in power and authority think of us is too great to lose. We are afraid of being vulnerable because we will be rejected. So we seek to convert everyone around us to our way of thinking, believing, and living. 

I recently finished reading The Giver for the third or fourth time. The story takes place in a Utopian futuristic society in which there is no pain, no color, no sun, no differences, where everyone is placed in a job that serves the community, where no one questions their role or how it's decided. Jonas, an 11 year old who sometimes sees things others don't, is given the role of Giver. There is only one Giver in their society, a person who contains all the memories from all of their history before they went to Sameness, before they gave up colors in order to be the same, before they gave up love in order to have stability, before they gave up choice in order to save people from their "wrong" choices. The current Giver hands Jonas his memories, filling Jonas with color, and pain, and joy beyond anything he's ever experienced, and he has no one to talk with about these new experiences. "...how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold? ...what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?"

The Giver explains, "Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."

There is a challenge in community of seeking unity, but not uniformity. In the intentional community I live in, each of us tries in different ways to conform the others to ourselves. We want the people around us to believe like we do, think like we do, act like we do, perform as we do. We want Sameness, because we think that is being united; we think that is what is meant by being of "one heart and mind." We want sameness because it makes us feel secure in our own beliefs and actions. 

I am often frustrated because that is an impossible expectation. 

The seven of us in the community differ on nearly everything: gay rights, how to wash the dishes, the Divinity of Jesus, the steps to salvation, what to cook for dinner, how to engage in dialogue when angry, how to grocery shop, how to engage with our homeless neighbors, how to communicate with the Divine, the truth of different religions and lifestyles, etc etc etc. 

We will NEVER agree. EVER. 

But we choose to live together. We choose to be aware our differences and we choose to stay and figure out how to embrace and love one another in those differences. 

We are learning how to reject sameness in the name of unity. Sameness is not unity. Sameness is conformity. And conformity has no room for real love. 

Community Like an Ocean

Intentional community feels a little like being in the ocean. I didn't tip toe; I dove in. It was frigid and I immediately wondered what in the world I was doing. The water looked so inviting from a distance.

The waves came, one by one and sometimes two by two, pulling me under, drowning me. I blamed the waves for my exhausted limbs and lungs, but the waves were only doing what waves do. I chose to walk into this. I chose to try and swim in this.

Sometimes there was a lull. The wind slowed, the waves rested, and a calm fell over the water. I breathed deep, relishing the silence, the stillness, preparing myself to be better equipped for the next wave. I took deep breaths, increased my lung's capacity, and found new methods that would work better than before.

Sometimes I am above the waves, breathing deep. Sometimes I am rolling underneath in the riptide. Sometimes I am swimming fervently, energy bursting from my body and soul. Sometimes I rest, and wait.

//

This week was full of activity, as most usually are: the groundbreaking of the De Luxe Theatre, candle lit dinners on our balcony, the return of a neighbor who was in the hospital after a fall, my housemate Charlie's 23rd birthday, braiding the boys' hair, losing power in our apartment complex, and moments of beauty and rest in between.

There is usually a lot of activity in our house, which often annoys me. I enjoy my personal space, quiet time, and low-key daily moments.  I don't like things to be too sensational, too loud, or too messy. In fact, I don't like them to be loud or messy at all.

A few weeks ago as I was walking home from Wednesday night church with my housemate, Rediet, we got a text from a housemate (who was at home making dinner with another housemate) wondering if their friend, a semi-homeless man who was on and off again using hard drugs, who had come over to hang out could stay for dinner. My initial reaction was, "I've had a long day. I didn't want to go to church tonight. I want to just relax tonight with a book. I don't want to build relationships. I don't want to entertain."

And then I thought about what things would be like if I lived with a bunch of people like myself. I would never invite people over for dinner when I'm hungry, or tired, or frustrated. But thank God for my housemates who are not me, who invite people over for dinner, who want to build relationships with people I may not initially want to build relationships with.

In community, we make up for one another's weaknesses and inadequacies. Somehow God fills in the cracks, building us all up and tearing us all down, filling the valleys and making the mountains low. When I"m tired, someone else is awake. When I am angry, someone else is grateful. When I am rested, someone else is exhausted. Seven people feeling seven independent feelings can be hectic and trying, but it also almost always guarantees that we will eventually balance one another out, learning how to meet one another in the process.

And, for your enjoyment, here is a video of Charlie getting his face smashed in his birthday cake.

God as People, God as Rocking Chair [guest post]

"I don’t know what to say. I don’t like praying out loud."

I don’t know what to do with Divine presence. As beautiful as I think my thoughts are about the Divine being as Liz Gilbert says, “in us, as us”, I don’t know what to do with that Divinity. I don’t know how to communicate with It anymore, did I ever?
Sometimes I think of that night. I had woken up at two in the morning to text messages about black hair dye. I was hurt because I felt abandoned, and now that a year has passed, I realize it wasn’t him that I felt abandoned by. I felt abandoned by myself.

What a tremendous loss.
What a death worth grieving.

I was up wailing until five that morning. I had had my own room for a few weeks by then. A 12 by 13 foot cold, concrete room. I soaked there in my self-inflicted isolation, spent silent eternities waiting for text messages, crying about my broken relationship with my mother, forgetting about the papers I needed to write. Thankful that there wasn’t a roommate there to worry about waking up. Thankful that I could be honest with my emotions.

I had already used an entire roll of toilet paper blowing my nose, when suddenly I felt rest. Suddenly I felt a rocking. Back and forth. Back and forth. Gently. Sweetly. My breathing slowed. My sobbing lessened. I was cradled. Sung to sleep by a silent Voice that whispered to me Love that is too valuable to tarnish with words.
I try to remember that night when I forget how to interact with Love.
//
I felt empowered. I looked around the train, my vision enhanced, more open. I saw God. I saw God with Her face forward, staring out at the passing city life. I saw God with His feet kicked up in the seat beside Him. He looked like He needed rest. I heard God say to me, “You look tired.” I smiled, “Probably a little bit”. God was carrying a large tarp filled with clothes and belongings. God was wrapped in cloth, scarves covering Her head, gloves warming Her hands. God was driving the train, God was entering and exiting.

I closed my eyes. I breathed God in, I released. I was in the presence of God. I am in the presence of God now. God is in Her office creating a Kickstarter account to fund raise for the stray dogs in our neighborhood. God is talking to His friends on Facebook. God is answering the phone.
Before turning out the light, God told me that She loved me and that She was there. I told Her thank you. We slept.


Check out other thoughts from Taylor at her blog by clicking the picture below.

Pizza by Candlelight

Working my way through conflict resolution, modes of communication, and healthy boundary setting with six other people in intentional community can get messy. It is often very painful as I discover unhealthy aspects of my mind, heart, and soul, the wounds I've covered up, the pride I excuse as leadership, the unhealthy ways of operating I've made normal over the years.

And then there are nights like these: Nights of candle lit pizza parties in the living room, making silly child like forts under the table, singing Imogen Heap and Matisyahu together, enjoying each other's presence. My roommate Taylor told me later that night, "Ya know, this is what I thought community would be like all the time: beautiful, fun, candle light..." We weren't prepared for the mess of community. But knowing the mess, the pain, and the trials makes the beautiful moments so much sweeter.

Groundbreaking

The De Luxe was once a Lyons Avenue monument, a thriving African American cinema during the days of segregation.  Fifth Ward was well known for being a place of business, entertainment, and life. My neighbor "M", who hangs out at the corner all day, tells me stories of his childhood, of the main thoroughfare, Lyons Avenue, being the place to be. Men and women would dress up and walk the Avenue as they visited The Deluxe for a show, danced in the nightclubs, and dined at the restaurants at Jensen and Lyons Avenue.

As desegregation happened and African Americans left Fifth Ward, the economy shrank and businesses, including The De Luxe, went under. Crime, drug use, and violence rose as people and businesses fled. The De Luxe had a short lived revival as an art gallery in the 70s, but since then, The De Luxe has loomed over Lyons Avenue, a haunted house, gutted and overgrown, waiting for a renaissance.

The non-profit I work for, The Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation (FWCRC), has partnered with the City of Houston and several government and non-governmental agencies to restore Lyons Avenue to the brilliance it possessed in its heyday. They have been renovating and building houses, apartment complexes (including the apartment complex me and my teammates currently live in), and common spaces like parks in order to bring life and commerce back to the Fifth Ward. 

Today we participated in the groundbreaking of the De Luxe Theatre. The once-empty building will be transformed into a multi-purpose arts center for the neighborhood, creating space for performances, galleries, and meeting spaces, and maybe even a library. 

Setting up for the Mayor 

My housemate Caleb surveys the gutted De Luxe

My office buddy Krystal, housemate Charlie, and me

I volunteer for a pretty dynamic non-profit. It's easy to forget in the day to day computer work, grant writing, and office details that the organization I work for is helping transform this community, offering hope and sustainability to a neighborhood with a rich culture and beautiful people. 

Salt and Light

"But Jesus is a homeless Cuban man we call Carlos. He’s got schizophrenia and a drinking problem, cast out in the cold by a shunning community and a family that can’t deal no more. And he may die of hypothermia tonight. Jesus is a black transwoman who is violently ostracized, threatened, and feared by a people that fail to grasp the mere fact of her humanity and beauty. Jesus has been diagnosed with learning disorders and behavioral problems since he first jumped out of his seat out of boredom, a Hot Cheetos diet, and way too much stress for a five year old. At three in the morning, Jesus rolls out of bed and unwraps five dozen corn husks for tamales she sells this morning and every morning on California Avenue. She hopes to sell them all today just in case her oldest son doesn’t find work today. Jesus is hoping no one will bother him from his spot under the Kennedy by-pass at Logan tonight. Jesus got beat up in high school to the point where he attempted suicide."

-from this blog


"We perhaps should not miss the fact that Jesus does not say “here are the conditions you must meet to be the salt of the Earth.” He does not say here are the standards of wholeness you must fulfill in order to be light for the world.  He looks out into the crowd of people in pain, people who have been broken open – those cracks that let in and let out the Light, who have the salt of sweat and tears on their broken bodies, and says you ARE salt. You. You are light. You have that of God within you the God whose light scatters the darkness. Your imperfect and beautiful bodies are made of chemicals with holiness shining in it…you are made of dust and the very breath of God."

- Nadia Bolz-Weber from her Salt and Light sermon found here.

A Sometimes Ache

Sometimes my heart aches to be in India.

Just sometimes.