To Live in Peace

I've just started reading Mark Gornik's book, "To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City." Gornik's book, written out of the experience of planting a church and helping a community become more cohesive in inner-city Baltimore, is an incredible, integrative work. It's an essential read for the church planter in an inner-city setting. Dealing with social, political, economic, and theological aspects of life in the inner-city, Gornik's book is multi-dimensional, and sopping with insights into new ways of being church in the midst of our ever-evolving communities. As someone thinking of church planting - or even just digging in and living out my Christian faith - here in Toronto, in an inner-city community, this book has been incredibly challenging. As a church planter, our thoughts should not just be captivated by saying the right words. Surely we are not only to relate the gospel in words, but also with the wholeness of our action. When we reduce the gospel merely to verbal speech, we reduce the potency and overall transformative power of the gospel over our thoughts our words and even our actions. To preach the gospel, we must all accept our call to authentically incarnate the gospel as Jesus did - not only in our words, but also in our full self-giving for the life of other, and the life of the world. It's easy enough to write off our duties to give everything, like the rich young ruler, to the poor, claiming not to be "rich," but rather "middle class," but these technicalities are not the spirit of Christ's all-encompassing, all-renewing gospel. To live in peace, in the inner city or anywhere else, is to be the peace, to (stealing from Gandhi) be the change now. Sounds heavy. I thought Christ's burden was supposed to be light...

Bedtime Bullets

My new haircut is, how-you-say...snazzy I'm getting a sneaking suspicion Ericka thinks I should go to the gym. Ughh. The official HBC countdown places us at 14 days. Awesome! Mark Gornik's theo-socio-political account of Biblical faith and the inner city is rocking my world right now. People better not refer to us as Andricka ever again

Becoming Human

I just began reading Jean Vanier's "Becoming Human." This book is going to stir me up, I can tell already: To reveal someone's beauty is to reveal their value by giving them time, attention and tenderness. To love is not just to do something for them but to reveal to them their own uniqueness, to tell them that they are special and worthy of attention. We can express this revelation through our open and gentle presence, in the way we look at and listen to a person, the way we speak to and care for someone. Thinking about church, church planting and the rest, this challenge has no choice but to resonate. So often caught up in "the conversation," how much time do we spend acting on the things we're all too willing to talk about? How much time do we spend doing the things we criticise the church for failing to do? Are we revealing God's love? Are we actually understanding the needs of our culture? Are we communicating, celebrating, and empowering others through the forgiveness of a loving community? Maybe it's time to do more than just talk about it...

Reasons

I've walked these streets a thousand times, if I've walked these streets at all. And everywhere I walk, I wait, and listen to the call. The call of the poor, the call of the oppressed, of the broken and the lame. The cry of the infant and the cry of the prostitute beaten into shame. I hear the cries of these city streets and sit and stare and wait. For healing to come and healing to reign, but healing does not wait. Healing comes with action. Healing comes with love. For healing to come, for healing to be, we wait on the sky above. What of you, and what of me, and what of our own lives? What are the reasons we wait so long, while listening to those cries? We can't afford to give them up, our lives, our lives are all we've got. But giving life to one more child, is the way our actions ought... I've walked these streets a thousand times, if I've walked these streets at all. And everywhere I walk, I dance, and dance until I fall...

Wounded

I love reading up on what the Fleshies are doing back in Calcutta. And as I read, I'm often struck by the lessons they're learning there - lessons we in North America need also to learn. Some of Sarah's remarks from Monday just struck a chord. Here are some excerpts: Violence of any kind is an assault on our identity and the human response to assaults on our identity is anger and retribution. But that was not Christ's example. The identity of the western world was assaulted on 9/11 - our power and wealth was assaulted. We have a model for how to live..for it is comendable if a man bears up under suffering because he is conscious of God. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats, instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. By his wounds we are healed (the whole world can have this healing but who will model what it is supposed to look like??) I am reminded that my identity even when under assault, can not be diminshed or stolen because it is secure not established by how I look, what I own, or how important a job I have. I remember the words of Jesus: You can take nothing from me because I give it to you freely.

Credentials

I wonder what it's like to be an immigrant. I wonder what it's like to be an immigrant doctor now sitting behind the wheel of a taxi cab, carting people around the city because it's the only job open to them. What must it be like to know that you can and could help others in this city, when this city, province and country do not recognise your credentials. I wonder what it's like to be a physicist or an engineer now selling smokes and newspapers from a corner store. Is this the better life they'd dreamed of? Was it worth it to leave? Was it worth it to now be on the end of the lotto ticket fiend's derision and greed? To have a gun pointed in their face for the sake of the $35 in the till? I wonder what it's like to have someone look at you, despite the fact that you've owned your own business, run a large organisation, and completed a Master's degree and tell you, "you'd make a fine secretary." There are so many things about these situations that I don't get. How it must feel to know that you're worth more, capable of more, and to have only a few options presented to you. It must take a lot of patience, a lot of strength to accept what could only seem like a step-down for a time until others become convinced of your competence. On a rainy morning, it seems a bit depressing to think of these things. On a rainy morning, or any other, maybe it is. The world is unfair. How do we pursue justice and love and mercy in these situations?

The End of Food

A couple of weeks ago I picked up veteran journalist Thomas Pawlick's "The End of Food" at an empire outlet across from my office. I read several chapters in the cafe before heading off to a friend's birthday celebration. We ate at a fairly generic restaurant. The food was nothing special. It was decent, but the flavours didn't burst out. The ingredients hadn't been terribly fresh, and certainly hadn't been brought in from the local market. Even in the midst of harvest time. I hate that the supermarkets feed us bland food all year long, and we convince ourselves we need to pay for it. I think it's about time we started paying attention not only to the quantity of food we eat, but also the taste and quality. Because really, there's quite the difference between a unfiorm rows of Loblaws tomatos, and the plump, juicy, flavourful variety available in a real garden. Related Links: The Nation :: Wendell Berry on the Food Crisis Foodshare :: The Good Food Box

The Devil Turns Green

In a rather bizarre twist of events, it seems as though Wal-Mart is adopting a more environmentally friendly business strategy. Or at least, that's what Fortune/CNN Money report. This summer's already seen the corporate monolith settle an environmental and noise dispute with a group of monks outside of Guelph, Ontario. And so while reading an article talking about the encouraging steps Wal-Mart is taking in reducing its environmental footprint, it seems somehow too good to be true. And yet, if it is true, that one of the most powerful corporate presences on earth is changing its habits, its networks and supply chains to become more green, that can't be a bad thing, can it? With more than 3,000 stores in the USA and another 1,000 internationally, generating $244 billion annually, the company has incredible reach. And so, as the company reconsiders its environmental impact, and while it appears to be making bold moves within its industry, we can't expect that the company will go completely granola. It still has to bring in the bucks to keep its shareholders happy, afterall. Energy efficiencies can be made, fuel consumption reduced, environmentally-friendly products can be introduced to the shelves, but at what point will the company stop? Sometimes shareholders just don't give a rip about the environment. Sometimes they'd rather more green in their wallets than on their trees. So. If Wal-Mart does follow through on its green programs, and with its wide-ranging influence challenges suppliers to do the same, we may see more and more corners of industry turn green. We cannot simply dismiss these moves because of larger disagreements with the company, with the adverse affects these box stores have on the integrity of communities, because the company itself, one that will not disappear overnight, is making moves towards a more sustainable enterprise. This doesn't mean that I'll be the first to run over to Wal-Mart to buy a package of high-efficiency light bulbs - but at least these types of products are being made more available to those people who do shop there. And maybe, combined with the efforts of environmentally conscious people everywhere, we will be able to reduce the frightening negative impact of our consumption habits upon our earth. Related Articles: NPR Environment Reports :: Even Wal-Mart Sells Organics Driving Down Quality :: Wal-Mart's Organic Push and Food Quality Sierra Club Betrayal :: Former Club President "Abandons Principles" Positive Space? :: Wal-Mart Takes on the LGBT Community

Out of Breath

Sick. So Sick. Gone to bed. Wish I'd gone to bed. Moving. Paper Writing. Planning. Everything's coming together. My body's falling apart. Need rest. Crave rest. Crave silence. Work beckons. School Starts. Soon I'll breathe again.