The boys got some $50 gift cards to Wal-Mart at a really nice christmas party put on by some well meaning white folks who wanted to bless some African refuge kids this holiday season. I will not make this post about the nice white people who are pleasing there conscience at the expense of beautiful kids, who are being taught that life is about getting the most out of rich white folks whenever you can, because they don’t stay around very long, and they have all the resources. I will also not make this about Wal-Mart. I have a well documented distain for the company, and also am trying to be a bit less of a prick about them. So:
Swedi and I discussed what he was going to buy with his gift card. He had a whole list and some of it was great and stuff he really needed. We have been really trying to encourage thankfulness with the boys, and also teaching them to think of others, to bless others as they have been blessed. I told Swedi that he had to spend $20 of his $50 on someone else. He Said, “what, that is bogus”. “Swedi you have been blessed with a $50 gift that you don’t deserve, it seems that it would look a lot like Jesus for you to give some of it away”, I responded. “Swedi who is someone that you are really thankful for, that you would like to get something for?” “I guess God and you”, he replied. In part because I hate Wal-Mart, and in part because I didn’t want him to think I was trying to muscle in on his “Christmas gift”, I told him it had to be someone other than me or God.
“A hobo’.
“A what?”, I replied.
“A homeless guy, I would like to get something for a homeless guy”.
“ I think that is a great idea Swedi, what do you think a homeless guy may want to receive from you?”
“Food I guess.”
A homeless guy, food, what 12 year old refuge boy, who is in the trenches of poverty himself thinks about homeless guys? Swedi, thats who.
We did our shopping. I threw up in my mouth 27 times in the thirty minutes we were stuck in that damn store. Once Swedi had reached his $30 dollar spending limit, we headed for the food. I could sense that he was not as into this giving as I was, so I gave him an out [I want him to learn to give, not despise me for taking his money]. “Swedi if you do not want to do this you don’t have to”, I said.
“Really, Jeremy Really?’
“Sure this is your money and if you would rather spend it on you, that is your decision”
“Ok, dude, but I want to get this homeless guy a chicken.”
“A what?”, It sounded so strange.
“Dude a chicken, you know a chicken”. Swedi has a way of repeating the exact same word or phrase and expecting me to gather the meaning based on the repetition only.
“Swedi, I know what a chicken is.”
“Dude, here they are, I want this one, I think it’s the best.” Swedi does care about getting the best, although usually it has to do with his stuff, not others.
We picked up the Chicken, got some axe body spray, a bag of chips for Moise, and two snickers for Swedi and checked out. $50.35, Moise kicked in the 35 cents and we were off to find a hungry homeless guy. We made it to the end of the parking lot, and Moise said “hey what about that guy, he looks homeless.” Moise has a good eye. An old man with a gray beard was panhandling the exit of Wal-Mart with a sign that said something, and a lot of bags around his feet. We pulled over, Swedi rolled down the window and handed the man the chicken, I said, “God really loves you man, have a great night”, he replied, “thank you so much, I didn’t know what I was going to eat for dinner. Thank you so much, thank you and God bless you”. The light turned green, and it was over.
Swedi: Was that Guy really not going to eat tonight?
Me: “It sounded that way, I bet he was glad to see a whole Chicken”
Moise: “He was so grateful, he seamed really happy for the chicken”.
Me: “That was great, how did it make you feel Swedi?”
Swedi: “it made me feel good?”
Moise: “me too I feel really good.”
Swedi: “where does that guy live?”
Me: “I don’t know, maybe in a tent or something. He is homeless so we know wherever he lives it’s outside”
Swedi: “but it is so cold out side.”
Moise: “that sucks dude”
Swedi: “He really sleeps outside?”
Me: “Yes he probably really sleeps outside, isn’t that sad?”
silence
Me: “Guys do you think that was something Jesus would do?”
Moise: “yes”
Me: “why?
Moise: “because he is a good guy and he doesn’t want anybody to suffer.”
Swedi: “when I have my own house I am going to have that guy live with me.”
Me: “I am so very proud of you boys.”
Swedi threw me a snickers bar when he jumped out of the truck at his house.
this past sunday shana and i shared on the christian and compassion at vineyard. it is funny because in a lot of ways i don’t feel as if i have a whole lot of expertise on the subject. i guess that’s fine, most of christendom is the blind leading the slightly less blind anyway. we shared out of Luke 10, the story of the good samaritan. who is my neighbor?
this question should really make us all a bit uncomfortable. jesus, in his time here on earth, made it very clear that to love god and to love your neighbor were fairly key components to who he was all about.
the answer should make us shutter. here are some neighbors i suggested we may have:
illegal immigrant pregnant and unwed sweat shop worker
child slave prisoner on death row
homeless man refugee inner city school kids
homosexuals iraqi
mental illness patient south korean osama
our neighbors are the very people we have been neglected, killed, chased, condemned, beaten down, ridiculed, but mostly ignored. for us, the challenge to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, heal the sick, befriend the outcast found in mathew 25. the challenge where jesus said that if we did not do these things the kingdom of heaven was not for us. that challenge has changed the way we choose to live our lives. for us it looks like moving into an under-resourced neighborhood and trying to love, like christ, our neighbors who are hurting and broken, abandoned, and thrown away. my heart is not that everyone moves into our neighborhood, that would ruin the place (too many white people). my heart is to see each of us get uncomfortable enough to move out of our little lives, and see the grand neighborhood this world is. to love our neighbors, the ones we can see and the ones we can’t.
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.
when the service was over a man that i have never met came up to me and said thank you, just before he began to weep.
I had talked about how my assumptions of my new neighbors changed so much just by moving in, being with them. I had always thought that folks found themselves in poverty were by nature lazy. now that i live and neighbor with them, i find that that is largely not the case. the fact is, there are so many people that work really hard, and still can not seem to break the chains of poverty.this man grew up in the projects. his mom was single and had four kids. she worked her butt off to go to nursing school. worked as a nurse doing terrible shifts to be able to support and be with her family. for years he heard the murmurs, the whispers that she was lazy. that they were not worthy, some how broken. this constant cloud of disapproval has hung on him like a fog. the shame of being poor. the shame of being black. the shame of being not us, not right, not human between sobs, he thanked me. for understanding. for telling people. for acknowledging. for allowing him to be equal. to be human. he said “you will never know how much it means to me that you see this, that you admit it, that you said it. you will never know” and then he walked away
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Have you seen the latest installment of the coke holiday commercial. You know the one with the family of polar bears, a laughing and playing with the cute baby polar bear. At some point there is always a coke involved, which makes a ton of sense. I have an adaptation to this holiday commercial that I want to share with all of you.
Picture this:
The family of polar bears are lounging around in a circle. They are rolling a beach ball around, playing keep away with the little one. This goes on for several seconds while sweet music plays in the background. At this point a loud bang rings out. The shot pans away from the cute baby polar bear to his mother laying on the ground with blood starting to soak the snow around her. The camera than does a slow 360, only to see empty and pretty white snow covered terrain. The camera comes full circle to the group of bears huddled around the baby and her critically injured mother. The baby is licking the mother bears nose, as you hear the sound of a can opening followed by a glug glug glug and aaahhhhh. The camera pans up toward the sky, where you see a hunter with a beer belly, a smoking shotgun, and tiny wings drinking out of a tall slender can.
Red Bull gives you wings……………………..
Last night I had the strangest dream. I can’t remember who the people where, or the house in which it took place. The part I do remember, took place in a kitchen with a group of about 8 people preparing dinner. The women at the stove said that she needed more meat for the dish she was preparing. I grabbed the cat from the kitchen table (yes I said cat). I than proceeded to open the cat’s stomach area like a bag of cereal. After a small struggle, the stomach split open, I reached inside the cat and pulled out three chicken breasts. I handed the meat to the cook, threw the remains of the cat in the trash, picked up my drink and joined a nearby conversation.
I had a very spiritual experience while playing Tecmo Super Bowl on nintendo8 today. I was playing with the Miami Dolphins against the Cleveland Browns. I was running with the ball hard, getting nowhere fast. I punted away after a three and out, and prepared to play defense. I watched as the Browns drove the length of the field before I was able to negotiate a 3rd and 15 by way of an incomplete pass and a monster sack on an all out blitz. Feeling lucky I decided to blitz again. I had the quarter back dead to rights, I came in hard through the line with the middle linebacker and had him in my arms. Than a very strange thing happened, he fought back, I fell down and he continued forward, eluding every defender, for a Michael Vick like run to the end-zone. I sat, hunched over my computer wondering where I went wrong, when a fist pumping man with the words “QB Browns” under him appeared on my screen. QB Browns? This guy who just ran over me was not even good enough to have a name, he was relegated to QB Browns. I was resolute in my desire to destroy the Browns and their QB. On the first play from scrimmage I ran a play action pass that resulted in a 79 yard touchdown, and a fist pumping QB of my own. The big difference between my celebration and that of the Browns was the name under the excited man. Dan Marino. I blitzed every down from then on, and never ran the ball on offense again. Final score Miami 59 Browns 7.
I often walk through life wondering who and what just hit me. Laying on the ground watching life slip out of my grasp, it is easy to start to feel over matched. I am learning, slowly, that once I am clear of who is on my side [Jesus] and who is not [the evil one] I play the game a whole lot differently. I want to approach life in a way that recognizes that I play with “Dan Marino” against “QB Browns” I know who wins. I am just waiting to learn the final score.
Fist Pump.
Last night I experienced what can only be described as a Christmas miracle. As I slept, I had a fascinating dream. In this dream there where many different mini dreams, some may have been for-telling the future, some may have been just hallucinations from the 26 pigs in 26 blankets that I ate at the worship team Christmas party. I received a phantom phone call at 4:00 am, and upon returning my head to its rightful place, in my ergonomically correct, therapy pillow (I am so old), I had a wonderful dream. In this dream, I was sitting at a round table full of people, eating and laughing. There was an empty chair next to me, and soon a tap on my shoulder with a voice asking for permission to sit in it. I said yes, without turning around, as I bit into the last bite of whatever I was eating (I can’t taste in dreams). When I finally looked to see who had taken the seat, I was surprised to see Matt Roloff from Little People Big World. We talked for several -dream- minutes in a way that reassured me, we where old friends. He explained to me the story of Christmas, while I listened as if I was hearing it for the first time. Matt than took some time to explain how we could very easily build an exact replica of the Manger, and how he would love to have me on the project development team, if I was interested. I woke from my dream with a smile so big it hurt my neck, or was the neck pain from sleeping all night with my therapy pillow upside down?
Yesterday morning I got to hang out with Henry for a bit why Shana tried to get some uninterrupted sleep. As we were talking and playing on the couch, I was struck by how much emotional love I feel towards this little human.
In my relationship with Jesus I always associate how much he loves me by how much I feel that I deserve that love. If I feel accomplished, disciplined, selfless, I tend to assume that God really loves me the way Jesus said he does.
When all is black, I know for sure that God is distant and nodding his head in disapproval.
If God is really a father to me?
If God did really “so love the world?”
If God really does have a memory problem?
If Jesus really does like sinners and screw ups?
If God loves me in the same way that I love Henry?
without condition
without reason
without justification
If God is all of these things.
I got to go to Imani’s 8th grade graduation several weeks ago. Imani is a refugee from Tanzania and the most remarkable human I have ever met. Imani lives a block from our house and I get to hang out with him a lot, he is full of wisdom, hurt, and love. A beautiful and painful concoction.
At Harding Middle School there are no less than ten awards that a person can receive. everything from perfect attendance to individual excellence awards in Math, Science, English. Just a lot of awards. The graduation was incredible, from the newly shaved head of the principle, to the little white girl who read her “poem”, in a cadence that sounded vaguely M and M’ish. The poem was profound, talking about how Harding made the 9 o’clock news for putting fights on youtube, while no one mentioned that they raised more money for cancer than any other school in Des Moines, “but thats life in the ghetto”. She’s right, that is life in the ghetto as I know it, a sharp focus on what’s wrong, and a diverted eye at all of the rich traditions, and history, and hope of these people.
In light of that:
Imani’s name was called, he walked to the first set of teachers and shook their hands, as his home room teacher started reading his awards and accomplishments. By the time he reached the other end of the stage to shake the bald principles hand and receive his certificates, he had to pause and wait, for a while. He had to wait as his teacher kept reading and reading and reading and reading. Imani received every possible accommodation at Harding Middle School for 2011. Every one. I got goose bumps, as he shyly waited. I was and am so proud of him.After the ceremony, I sought out the little white girl M and M, and told her that I liked her poem, and then found Imani.
Turns out Imani is friends with all the outcasts. I came up to him in a group that looked more like the cast of Freaks and Geeks than, the most likely to succeed page in the year book. I wasn’t shocked though. at the last few parent (or Jeremy and Shana or Chris and Es) teacher meetings his teachers tell me that he is always choosing to sit next to the troublemakers, or less popular kids. I asked why. His reply was “I know a lot Jeremy, and I can help them learn. Everyone deserves a good friend”. Imani is a great friend.
“Jeremy, do you have 10 bucks?” Imani asked.
I opened my wallet and said you can have anything I have. “But I only need 10 bucks” he said, as I was blinded by his halo.
There is a moral to this story. I can take no credit for the man that imani is becoming. All of that credit goes to another man, an equally impressive man. His father, Who has watched as his world in Africa was torn apart by war, A man who has watched his wife, and two children killed. A man who has done whatever is needed to keep his family alive. A man who is an Engineer in profession and mind, but a meat packer in America. A man who deserves the respect and dignity that he has earned. Who has lost too much to loose the credit for this fine young man.
I will never take credit for who Imani is, that would be selfish, arrogant, and would be robbing a father of the great pride and joy that he should feel in seeing his son becoming a great man.
Dj roasts coffee.
Dj is a young man that lives in the transitional house for men at Freedom for Youth Ministries. Dj is my first employee at Freedom Blend Coffee.
Dj, is a refugee from Liberia. He left his home land when he was five. That was the last time he saw his mother. Traveling all over the world avoiding wars and worse, plays a toll on a young boys life. After a failed four years in Florida, a failed attempt at American High School, Dj ended up in Des Moines Iowa. Couch surfing and aimless. A cousin who knew about Freedom for Youth invited Dj to check out our program. With no other options and a family whom had long ago grown weary of his life, Dj moved in.
The first week or so that Dj was with us was brutal. He made it clear that although it was winter and we had snow to shovel and ice melt to lay out, he did not like the cold, or work, or me. I tried to kick him out of the program twice, but someone with far more grace than I saved him. That was four months ago. Since then Dj has been working on his GED every morning, started making eye contact with people, developed a dependable work ethic, and has wormed his way into my heart.
I hired Dj a month ago as a trainee in the coffee business. Since than he has not only done all of our packaging and labeling, but also started doing all of our roasting. I had the pleasure of giving him his 30 day evaluation last week.
I had to explain every sentence. Dj do you know what “works with excellence means?” “No”, and so on. The beauty of this evaluation is that Dj, was all fives. The guy is never late, he gets to work regardless of if I am there or not, he multi-tasks, and is a neat freak. He has totally won me over. About half way through our discussion I noticed that Dj was crying, not really crying as much as weeping. His shoulders were shaking his eyes fixed on mine, a look of total bewilderment on his face.
“Dj, are you ok” I asked
“Yes”
“why are you crying?” “Have you never had a job review before?”
“I have never had a job before”
“Oh, well this is as good as a review as you can get, if you work like this, you will always be able to have a job, and always get reviews like this. This is a great review”
“No one has ever said things like this about me before”
“It’s all true Dj. Do you realize that there is no way that I could have this coffee business without you, that I tell people all the time how much I can trust you. Just today I was in a meeting and I was telling them that as we were talking, you were roasting coffee, and that is what I am the most proud of.” you are indispensable, I could not do this without you”
More tears, a lot more tears.
We stood up, Dj gave me a hug. the first hug in our four months together that I didn’t initiate. I held him as he gathered himself, I held him as I said “Dj I am so proud of you, you are a fine man, I love you.” We broke our embrace, I held his shoulder and said: “by the way, I would like to give you a $.25 an hour raise. Your that good”. Big smile, High five, one more hug for the road.
Friday night Dj did not go home to the promise house, he spent the weekend with his cousins. they went to hear a comedian. Dj is African, and Africans fought at a party in this same spot a few months ago. A bunch of Africans were arrested on nonsensical charges that night. Dj was one of them. I believe that the work that is started in Dj is not finished, I believe that God is a fan of Dj. I believe in redemption. Pray that this does not derail Dj, that we can find a good, free lawyer to help us fight injustice.
When I find Dj this week (I’m still looking), I will give him a hug and say: Dj I am so proud of you, you are a fine man, I love you. Now come back to work”.
I have always held the belief that God can and does use animals to comfort people. Several years ago, I was staying with a friend for a few days, wading through what may best be explained as a dark night of the soul. HIs dog never left my side, if I sat on the couch, Buddy would curl up at my feet always making sure to touch me. I can honestly say that in that moment Buddy’s warm fur and deliberate touch met a need in me that seemed to say, God is real.
The duplexes across the street from our house are set aside for under-resourced, low income families. I am glad they exist. They provide a clean and comfortable place to call home. The problem is that in the past year of living on 8th street, 4 different families have lived in unit B. There is a transient nature to our neighborhood. People move more often than I clean my garage.
It doesn’t sadden me to see people come and go, as there is a part of me that loves adventure and new things. I love meeting new people, finding new restaurants, learning a new city. I guess I should say it didn’t bother me. Until.
Until one morning I noticed, the neighborhood dog and a boy.
The neighborhood dog roams up and down our block at will. Visiting other dogs, stopping to eat discarded food in the street, finding the best place for shade, or sun, or puddle. The neighborhood dog doesn’t bother me, I don’t mind that he roams, or that he is without boundaries, purpose or discipline. He actually serves as a good picture of some of our other neighbors (people).
The boy, is young, maybe 6 years old. African American, quite, most often alone.
As I was leaving for work one morning, I looked across the street and there they were. The dog, laying down on the side walk, his legs out to his side, almost hugging this little boy who was curled up in a tender embrace with this dirty roaming dog. The boy was stroking the matted hair of this dog, as he nuzzled his face in its neck. I stopped.
Watching from my porch for several minutes, I could not get over the intimacy that was happening. The care and comfort that was being exchanged.
The boys Mom came out, screamed, “get of the ground, stop touching that mutt, your going to miss the buss.” The door slammed, he slowly got up, bent down rubbed the dogs neck and said. I love you.
I am sitting in a coffee shop crying.
I did not cry when I saw this, but today I am seeing the significance if this moment. I don’t know his family well enough to say for certain that he is not loved, I can not for sure say that he is not just a boy who loves animals. I cant for sure know anything about this story. What I can know is that, God is using this mutt to love on this kid. to provide a safe place for him to be vulnerable. I know for sure that this kid is looking for love and expectance (no matter how good his home life may be), and that for a few minutes before school he gets that from a dirty stray.
Yesterday I cam home in the middle of the afternoon and God was laying in the grass across the street from my house, letting a ghetto boy cuddle him and stroke his beard.
