preferential option for the poor?

Numerous friends of mine have been struggling with finances recently—actually, almost everyone I know in my age category. I too have pinched pennies almost all my life and can be very severe in my frugalness if I decide to be. My goal has been to train myself to be as Paul says in Philippians, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” So when I decided to go the Annual Meetings this year, I knew I would have to experiment with accommodations, even if only to respect the financial distress of those I live with.

My heritage taught me to do vacation differently than most—as a child my family never stayed at hotels or had vacation packages to go somewhere warm and on the ocean. Instead, we went where there were friends or family to visit. Otherwise, there was no reason to go. Realizing now, how others do vacation accommodations, I have taken the opportunity to experiment. Americans often do the hotel with a swimming pool thing. Occasionally, I’ve done that. Amish Mennonites give and receive hospitality from other Amish Mennonites. There is even this Mennonite directory out there called Mennonite Your Way which is a hospitality house list of people all across the country. In Mexico, if you are vacationing and you have a car, you sleep in your car or stay with friends. I once lived out of a VW bug with 4 other people for 3 days, as we toured Jalisco and a went to the festival of San Juan Martin, Caballero. We mingled with other travelers. And I discovered that if you don’t have a car you ride the bus and if you don’t have fare for the bus you walk. For bus riders and walkers, there are accommodations aplenty under every tree along the road or in the town square, often in the courtyard of the church. Some day, I hope to travel like this.

All this is to say that I have been considering how best and how functionally to live, when traveling and when at home. With the threat of poverty is hanging over the heads of many folks in my generational category, forcing us to rethink money expenditure and living patterns, I’ve seen many of my peers attracted to living in community, either out of need to survive financially or for expressed faith convictions. Hospitality has also become a bigger deal for them. Hospitality is a virtue amongst the poor. Hospitality is also an essential pillar in community building. (Conversely, entertainment, privacy and independence are virtues of the rich—contributing to loneliness and isolation.) Yet, one has to look at the circumstances and wonder, if we would have the financial means necessary to live alone and travel alone, would we then somehow loose the conviction to live interdependently in a community of believers. My observation has been that, largely, once one comes into a bit of financial means—enough to live alone—one then lives alone or in a circumstance of his/her individual choice. In that case, may God grant me the means to offer hospitality but also the blessing of poverty.

better than ever

So, I threw my cell phone in the washer two weeks ago. Then my computer developed internet connection difficulties which still have not been resolved. Then I was out of the state for a week. My only available land line and internet connection is at work and I have not been there for over a week. During that week, I’ve lived out of a car, the pack on my back and the hospitality of old and new friends and family. Loosing connection hasn’t necessarily stressed me out—in fact, it has had the opposite effect. Necessary communication with my professors and others about pending projects and important life events, etc, have been possible through narrow windows of grace. There’s been a sort of peace and calm that has settled over me as I’ve received this as a Sabbath that the Lord has sovereignely provided for me. I’ve had a lot of time to pray. I feel full and satisfied. My spirit feels tangible to me again. I feel like I can rely on it again to guide me without the interference of over processed noise coming from my head and my feelings. Even though my weeks have been jam-packed with going here and there and doing things and I caught a nasty cold, I feel calm and content and a peace that hugs me only as the creator of harmony could.

As for my extended week off...Why? What for? Scoping out the future. Adventure. Surveying the scholarly world. Picking at and testing connectivity points with my faith/heritage against my growth/education. And as always stretching the dichotomies between the two worlds I hold within myself to an eeking, screeching, tensile stretch, just to test and toughen myself. I’ve been in Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Virginia and drove through every state on the way back with my sister—all in time for Thanksgiving Day. It all started on Thursday with no sleep the night before and a very nice nap on a flight out to Dulles where my sister picked me up and took me to Mt. View in Virginia. The next three days was a juggling match between the busy bustling DC belching out its scholars and philosophers in fancy hotels with plush carpet, chandeliers and evening parties, for higher society of course—and—the calm, natural beauty of the Virginian mountains and valleys seen from the bay windows of a quaint nursing home, staffed by young twenty-year-old Mennonites, tending to mostly mentally diminished elderly. I’ve been allowed...(gasp)...encouraged to delve into the metaphysical reaches of my mind but then in the next breath drawn into the simple, beautiful harmony of the songs and exuberant laughter at my sister’s farewell gathering. But that wasn’t yet enough. I had to make a few stops in PA to investigate and evaluate the theological education at SMBI our token school of higher Christian education and then off to Lancaster to hunt for a covering maker/seller and a visit with old and new friends. By then, I remembered that I had forgotten to take my vitamins or sleep much at all, as I sniffled and coughed the whole way home, taking turns sleeping and driving with my sister. I kept a log of my expenses. I think perhaps it would be interesting to post it...later though. My connectivity obligations have been challenged and I have submitted. Most people know that I’m still alive.

hey, sista!

Guess who stole your very cool hat?
Looking forward to seein ya very soon.

check it out!

My daisies decided to bloom in November.

stranger encounters: Mohammud

Today, I was exchanging Bloomington Avenue stories with a fellow young, urban, city dweller. I thought I would share one here too. But first—a bit of context. Bloomington Avenue is the “seedy” part of Minneapolis. All those with any “sense” stay away for fear of getting hustled, shot, robbed...whatever! Five years ago, I didn’t know that. I didn’t grow up learning to make the same sorts of distinctions about people and places.

I’m not naturally a very docile person but one has to choose into that manner of being when getting to know a new person or a completely new situation in a new context. One has to be open, comfortable, and keen on following the flow wherever it is going but then be quick and agile enough to shimmy out of exploitative situations. I like to go on these adventures, where I have to practice being as bendable as Gumby. The adventures are incredibly fun. One meets the most interesting sorts of people, goes to the most interesting sorts of places. It can get a bit addicting. It all started out quite unintentionally.

I worked as a night security guard at the Exel Energy building in downtown Minneapolis. The first night on the job was quite a shock to me, as all other male security guards drooled all over themselves because there was a woman working. But Mohammed was different. He was basically kind and very respectful to me. He gave half of his Subway sandwich to me and insisted that in his culture everyone shares. He was young. He was a devout Muslim. I felt an affinity to him because he was different and I was different. The other security guards would taunt him and say terrible atheistic things about God to him, just to see him respond as he always did. He would plead with them, terror and sorrow written all over his face, asking them to stop saying such things about Allah. Then he would kneel in the dirty grimy, city, alley and kiss the ground, pleading with Allah for forgiveness.

We would hang out, outside of work. I would occasionally help him navigate the city or go to the MCTC for an application. He would sometimes be fearful of odd things. For instance, he always paid for everything in cash. But when paying his bills at the bank one day, I suggested that I could simply write out a check and he could deposit his cash into my account. He refused because, he explained, they would be able to associate his name with me and my address. I would go over to the house in which he and his sister rented a room from an older Muslim couple, who lived on Bloomington Avenue. Both women wore the hijab. Mohammud and his sister’s room was plain and bare. They slept on the floor. But we would all eat together in the livingroom off of the most expensive, posh furniture I had ever seen, in front of a giant TV screen, where the American soap operas mesmerized everyone. They reminded me of Amish children newly exposed to the TV.

Sometimes he would take time out to pray in front of me. Kneeling and kissing the ground and reciting. He told me the story of their escape from their home in Somalia. His last name was the same name as a political leaders’ and one day the authorities came to their door. My Muslim missionary friends were terrified for me when they found out I was hanging out with a Muslim man. I didn’t know what the “rules” were for hanging out with a Muslim man but Mohammed seemed quite harmless to me. Once we went to the place in West Bank where he wired money to his family in Ethiopia. The man behind the desk spoke with Mohammed and there was much joking, laughing and knee slapping. Later, I asked Mohammed what they were joking about, and he wouldn’t tell me. Soon after that, I decided to be more open and descriptive with him about boundaries and what my present interpretation of what American boundaries were. He could never remember to call them boundaries—he always referred to them as crossing borders. He once read a personal letter I was writing a friend. I told him he had crossed my borders. When I told him I was moving to Wisconsin to finish my schooling, he insisted that he and his sister would come with and live with me. I told him we couldn’t do that because it would be crossing borders.

And crossing borders it was! It was an unusual friendship. It was completely platonic (at least from what I could tell) and entirely accidental.

strengthen your body’s tie to your spirit through fasting

We often live very compartmentalized lives. We go to church to do spiritual things. We go to school to learn. We work at work. We work out at the gym. We sit on the couch to watch TV. We sit at coffee to chat with a friend. Sometimes my body does it while my mind and my spirit are not engaged. Often my mind does stuff while my spirit and body do nothing. But perhaps the situation that happens least is when my spirit is engaged and my body and mind are either quiet or in compliance.

There are some hazards to living with one’s being all diced apart like that. The body does stuff the mind and spirit never gave it permission to do. The mind thinks things disconnected from the spirit etc. Yet when one fasts, there are ways of fasting that cause your body to listen to your spirit. And it’s not through fighting with the image of a cheeseburger in your head. Instead, as the hunger-pangs hit you, it is as though your body is a desert of dry bones longing, longing, longing... longing for the spirit to fill the wind and bring nourishment to your soul. The hungrier one gets the deeper your spirit longs—as though your entire being is buried in longing—longing for God. Being hungry is only a symptom of lack of sustainance. Perhaps we should all be hungry with longing until the sustenance arrives. Yet what sort of sustainance are we talking about.

I’ve been noticing the food and hunger themes in my life. In my dreams, I often find myself at banquets and church picnics where there is no food. I am hunting for food in dangerous places. I am often hungry for something but I can't discern what it is. I go to the grocery store and look at everything and I don’t want any of it. I planted a garden this summer but was too busy to harvest it. I am thirsty and I drink water but it never seems to satisfy completely. I come home to an empty house. I make dinner. I sit down to eat it at the kitchen table and I don’t feel like eating it because I am alone. Conversely, I go to my parents’ house and immediately head to the kitchen to talk to my mom as I open the refrigerator. There I eat at the kitchen table with my family and I am satisfied.

as we live dying

I have a friend who I enjoy very much. He’s quite a bit older than I. But that just means he’s like my grandfather or father or something like that. We’ve been friends for years. I’ve been to his family picnics and birthday parties and all of that. He is a gem in hiding. Everyone focused on his great compassion. Yet, he was incredibly intelligent and an astute thinker as well. He was full of energy and a dynamic conversation partner, when I first met him 6 years ago or so. We’ve talked about everything under the sun, with much expression and energy. His daughters are every bit as energetic as he is—rather, as he was. He developed some severe health problems and I watched as his energy was cut in half, then it was cut in half yet again. Now, it seems it has been cut in half again. He used to appear in public, looking vibrant and bright-eyed. Everyone thought he looked great. But I knew he went home and then collapsed for the next two days, to recover. I spoke with him briefly the other day—I knew if I spoke to him too long he would collapse for two days from our short conversation. I cried for him. His spirit, so full of desires and passion, lay trapped in a body which gives him only a drop of fulfillment. I still visit him. Next time I envision kissing his cheek, holding his hand and saying very little. Perhaps, I can ask him to greet my sister for me. He'll see her before I will. I'll tell him she can take my place as his conversation partner until I join them.