WIND AND FIRE

As of this Thursday, there are but two months to go in this eleven-month journey of the Nashville Epiphany Project. Come September 1, there will be some new Young Adult Volunteers moving into the Toolshed and the four of us will be moving on. An important part of this year’s experience we have participated in a program of vocational discernment, which is a program of exploring what God is calling us to do in our lives. A simple explanation might be the question “what am I going to do when I grow up?” A truthful answer to that question based on the principles we have used this year is “lots of things, probably.”

The four of us in NEP have used this year to learn more about the concept of vocation and to put these ideas to work in our own lives as we have tried to discern where we are called to be over the long term, and the short term. We have learned that most often, an accurate vision of the long term is not realistic, and making decisions based on what we feel called to in the moment is often the best strategy. So, that is what we have done in planning our lives as they will look come August 1 after this year of service is over.

Patrick and Chasie are still trying to discern what they will be doing. Patrick will be returning to Texas where his girlfriend Sarah is, and he is looking for an engineering job in Austin. Chasie and Tara will be staying here in Nashville. Chasie is looking for a job somewhere, while Tara has accepted a position at Conexión Americas, where she was working this year. She has spent the last several weeks weighing her options and now plans to defer her admission to Vanderbilt Divinity School until the fall of 2008. Chasie and Tara are looking for an apartment together.

And now: the news you’ve all been waiting for.

(drum roll…)

As for me, as has been typical for me, I am not following the well scripted plans that I had made for myself. I am doing something that I had never even thought of as a possibility a year ago. I will be staying here in Nashville and will continue my work at the Campus for Human Development. I initially asked about the possibility of staying in April. I got an immediate yes, which I was happy about, and I was given the opportunity to think about what role I’d like to take and create my own job description.

I will primarily be continuing the work I have been doing this year as a member of the education team. Those activities—staffing the support desk, running the education center, and offering basic hospitality—will take the majority of my time.

The other part of my job will be a new position for the Campus: for Spirituality Programming. In the job description I wrote, I included the following paragraph that described why I wanted to add this to what the Campus offers.

“The type of spirituality that seems to be most often presented to the homeless is a narrower version of religion than the one that underlies our core values: spirituality, love, hospitality, respect, hope, community and non-violence. Religion is often used as a way to earn help, and as a basis for feelings of moral superiority, dividing people into groups rather than uniting them into one body of people made in the image of the divine. The spirituality we express is born out of a belief common to many faiths that God is love. The expressions of our spirituality, though necessarily religious in nature, should always seek to include rather than exclude and offer unconditional love rather than narrow dogma.”

I will be starting a weekly (or possibly more frequent) “chapel” service. I might come up with a more creative name later. These brief services will give people a chance for people to reconnect spiritually. I want to use art, music, readings, prayer and silence to allow our homeless participants to express themselves spiritually. I plan to recruit other staff members and outside guests to lead these services whenever possible.

I’ll also be organizing a program for our interns, so they might have a chance to reflect more deeply on the work we do and the experiences we share. This was actually prompted by Jana, who was an intern along with me at the Campus this year, when she said that she wished we would have had more of an opportunity to explore the bigger issues, like “should I give a homeless person on the street money if they ask?” [Funny story—at this point in writing this entry, the four of us just went to eat at Chili’s on West End. As we were walking out, a presumably homeless guy asked the girls how much he could pay them for the boxes of carry out they were carrying. His strategy was excellent, since they both, as most somewhat nice people would do, just said “oh, you can just have them!” And then the guy asked me for a dollar or two so he could go in and buy a drink. I said “no, I don’t think so,” because I have answered the above question about whether or not to give people money on the streets for myself. Plus, if he was going to buy the food from the girls originally, why did he need money for a drink? Okay, back to the blog entry…]

Other plans I have for our spirituality programming include giving our participants an opportunity to serve other people. As an example of a way this has already been done, after Hurricane Katrina, our participants were able to use the points they accumulated from attending classes, which they would normally use in our store to buy something for themselves, to buy bottled water to be sent to the Gulf Coast. This would give people a sense of purpose and help break the cycle of using religion as a means to getting help (you have to go to services to spend the night at the Mission) or as a strategy to solve all of their problems (i.e. “if I become a Christian, then all my problems will be gone and I’ll quit drinking). Also, I am going to try and facilitate ways for participants to express their own senses of spirituality through art, music, and creativity. Giving them a voice to communicate with the outside world is also a goal, which might include something like a Campus blog or enhancing participation in the newsletter that we put out.

So, you might ask, have I given up on seminary? No. I am still on the “ordination track,” and I have my annual consultation with my presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry this coming weekend in Louisville. One thing I have learned through vocational discernment this year is to not try and look too far down the road. I still see theological education in my future. I don’t know whether that will be a year from now or 30 years from now. In the meantime, I will be discerning the next step on the journey. And for now, that next step is alongside the homeless in Nashville, Tennessee.

* * * * * * * * * * *

At the end of this morning’s Pentecost worship service, Jim took a vial of oil that he had used during his sermon and offered people the chance to come forward and be anointed. Presbyterians don’t typically do much anointing, but we did a little this morning. As he marked the sign of the cross on our foreheads, he said “receive the Holy Spirit.” He also personalized each person’s anointing. To me, he said something like “May the Spirit of God be with you in your work at the Campus and through you may God touch those with whom you work.” May it be so.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

We remember that your church
was born in wind and fire,
not to sweep us heavenward
like a presumptuous tower,
but to guide us down
the dusty roads of this world
so that we may lift up the downcast,
heal the broken,
reconcile what is lost,
and bring peace amidst unrest.

-Garth House, Litanies for all Occasions

If I had a hammer

At work, we have a terrible time keeping the support desk area clean or neat in any way, shape, or form. Part of the reason for this is that we have a continuous stream of things being given to us. Today, our participants were especially generous, as for some reason, there were gifts rolling in all day. I thought the pile of gifts we had sitting around this morning was an especially nice collection worthy of sharing with the outside world.

We had two weapon-like objects turned over to us: some pruning shears and a hammer. (Both of those are less dangerous than the machete that somebody gave us last week after he confiscated it from a friend who had been drinking and waving it around in the alley.) The pruning shears were handed to me by a guy who came in looking a little bit like Liberace the other day (complete with a paper napkin ascot and a sparkly vest with flowers in his lapel).

There was also a nice bouquet of flowers given to Mary by a man trying to make nice which came from poor soul's flower bed. A man gave Amanda a rose, and there was the stuffed animal of the reindeer-dog from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas that Maggie got as a gift on Monday. One of our guys who is into leather work made a couple of woven leather keychains for us too. These things are in addition to the several pieces of hard candy that we usually get in a week.

I work in a strange place.

Ode to Mom

My mom has good reason to be nervous on Mother's Day. That's because probably 75% of the Mother's Day gifts she has received from her children have been the types of gifts that few other moms receive. I've heard that many children give their mothers things like flowers, money, chocolates and jewelry. My mom was much luckier.

There was the series of two or three years where Brian, Sarah and I made videos for her. We'd get out the video camera and put together something hillarious. There was that one time when we reenacted on video footage of our births. (Of course there was no such thing as home video cameras when I was born, but that's another story...) The images of us prentending to be my mom giving birth to our cat, Ranger, who bit the dust this past winter, still haunt all who saw them. There's the video we made of our parents' wedding where I wore one of Dad's sport coats and held a mop with a veil on it while Brian married us. I think he said something like "in hickness and sealth as long as you both shall live," if I remember correctly. We put together some elaborate set-ups where I pretended to be the host of a tv show and sat next to our tv where we had another video playing that we had made. It was pretty high tech for a bunch of elementary school kids. I just remember that we always made Mom cry when we gave these videos to her. I think the tears came from laughing so hard, but they probably were also the result of thoughts like "why did my kids turn out this way?"

There were also the times where our Mother's Day gifts came from shopping sprees at Big Lots or the Dollar General. We would usually load up and go to the dollar store in the worst area of town where the items were sure to be the junkiest and load her up with an assortment of strange items. One year we gave her a huge gift basket with probably 25 individually wrapped items such as a strange looking jar of peas and carrots, a cake mix printed in German, a video of firey car crashes, wrestling figurine toys, and a huge dented can of fruit cocktail. We also got her a plastic chicken (named _________, the chicken of love and happiness--does anybody remember her name?) that she embarrased us with by putting plastic flowers in it and putting it on our front porch.

Cheryl Moles. What a lucky woman.

I was hungry and you did not feed me…in prison and you did not visit me…

While walking up the sidewalk leading into Holy Name Church in East Nashville the other night, a homeless man who recognized me from working at the Campus asked me if I knew where he could find dinner that night since he got off work too late to get into the Mission. Though I knew there was probably nobody left serving dinner to the homeless at almost 7:00pm, I felt a little bad that I didn’t know who else served dinner other than the Mission on Tuesday nights, and that I am not a great humanitarian like our site coordinator Susan who would have had a “Where to Find Help in Nashville” brochure and a granola bar handy.

Inside, people were gathering for an evening service of prayer for and solidarity with a man convicted of killing a Memphis police officer over 25 years ago. It was Philip Workman’s final night; he was executed at 1:38 a.m. that night at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in West Nashville. I was invited by Stacy Rector, our former associate pastor at Second who is now the executive director of TCASK (Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing), to play the piano for the service at Holy Name. There were about sixty people present whose faith calls them to oppose killing by the state. I recognized many people among those assembled as Second members, volunteers and staff from the Campus and others I’ve seen at similar events.

The second preacher for the night, following Stacy, was Rev. Victor Singletary from First Baptist Church-Capitol Hill. I only knew of that church because they are on the list of places where people can go to get clothing if they need it. His message was a direct challenge to the Christian majority in our culture that is virtually silent on he types of social issues about which Jesus spoke. He talked about a woman from his own church who had received an email from him earlier in the week with an action alert from TCASK and an invitation to the prayer service on the eve of the Workman execution. She called the church the next day asking that her name be removed from the email list that sent messages like that, but she did request that she continue to receive notices about upcoming church events, teas, and social events. The woman from Rev. Singletary’s church is just one part of our broken Christian culture that has no use for the least of these among us. The call of the church is to become like Christ, who always used his voice to speak for those who were not allowed to use theirs. As Matthew 25 states, it is our duty to, together as the church, feed the hungry, quench the tongues of those who thirst, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison. We are to pray for our enemies, rather than kill them, which was the message recently in a popular Terre Haute church. Christians have failed to vocally oppose war, the death penalty, and reforms of welfare that left many poor families to fend for themselves. It is our calling to not remain silent.

I don’t know whether or not Philip Workman killed a police officer. Even if he did, how does his life not fall under the category of being precious in the sight of God? Loving our enemies sometimes means siding with those who have done horrifying things.

In a strange twist to the end of Philip Workman’s story, the homeless ended up having more to eat that night. Workman requested for his last meal to be a vegetarian pizza delivered to a homeless person. Though the prison system denied that request, other people from around the country ordered hundreds of pizzas in Philip Workman’s name and had them delivered to places like the Nashville Rescue Mission and the Oasis Center. Even from our culture’s group mentality of vengeance and death can come mercy and food for the sustenance of life.

Related Links:

Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing

CNN: Executed man's last request honored -- pizza for the homeless

"Teach me some melodious sonnet..."

This morning’s worship at Second Pres. was one of the most moving worship experiences I have been a part of. It was the result of a Sunday School class that was one of the most popular at Second this past spring: “Music and Religious Identity at Second.” The class was taught by John McClure, a professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School, who along with his wife Annie, currently serving as our interim associate pastor, is my mentor for this year in NEP. Incidentally, for those from Terre Haute, he taught and was friends with Lant Davis at Louisville Seminary. He designed a worship service today that would integrate music that expresses the congregation’s identity. Here is a link to an explanation of the service.

The service went like this:

RINGING OF THE BELL Brian Findley called us to worship by ringing a handbell
LIGHTING THE CHRIST CANDLE

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRELUDE: “Improvisation on ‘Morning Has Broken’” by Jeff Moles, piano

CALL TO WORSHIP
The first verse of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” was sung responsively, with John singing a line, and the congregation answering back. Accompaniment was guitar, hammered dulcimer, and tin whistle.

OPENING HYMN: “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
All three verses were sung, with the instruments listed earlier, with me on piano and Nancy on organ joining in this time. This was the first time the finished new organ was played in worship. Belmont student Alan Fey also joined in on Bodhran (a Celtic drum). This was the absolute highlight of worship for me. I loved looking at people’s faces during this hymn. The singing was outstanding.

CALL TO CONFESSION as water was poured in the baptismal font
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
As people continued in silent confession, “Appassionata” from Secret Garden’s album White Stones was played.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON led from the font

CONGREGATIONAL RESPONSE: “Amazing Grace”
This was one of the most moving parts of the service. Burkley Allen sang the first verse solo, being joined by her daughter Mary on the second. The congregation and choir sang a capella on the final three verses. It was a moment of quiet assurance of God’s grace.

A TIME FOR THE CHILDREN
“Little Children Come Unto Me” song by member Steve Siler.
Cathy Hoop led the children in a discussion about hymns and music, ended by their singing “Jesus Loves Me.” As the children exited, I played a short improvisation on “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” in the style of Steve Siler’s “Little Children Come Unto Me.”

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

SCRIPTURE LESSON: Revelation 21: 1-6 (new Heaven and a new Earth…)

ANTHEM: “I Saw a New Heaven” by E.L. Bainton, sung by the choir

SERMON: The sermon was begun and ended by Annie McClure. In the middle, members of the Music and Religious Identity class presented the “liner notes” they had come up with to explain the significance of a favorite piece of music. Betty Orr began with the song “Down to the River to Pray” from O Brother, Where Art Thou, which reminded her of the a capella congregational singing of her past, and her baptism by immersion. Bob Crownover reflected on George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” as a connection he had to God when his connection to the church waned during his youth. Jessica Riviere discussed the spiritual “Freedom is Coming,” which was a familiar song she heard in an unfamiliar place while living in Germany for a year, and included themes of justice and struggle for freedom.

MOMENT FOR SILENT REFLECTION

DEDICATION OF LIFE:
CALL FOR THE OFFERING
THE OFFERTORY: “Great Ektania” by Sergei Rachmaninov (recorded music)
DOXOLOGY: “Gloria” from the Taize Community, played by the full worship ensemble (2 guitars, percussion, piano, organ, bass)

INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
“Come people, come to the table of Christ. We will make a giant loaf…And we will bring many guests, the poor, the battered, the anxious, the weak, the lonely, the sick.”

THE GREAT THANKSGIVING and EUCHARISTIC PRAYER
THE SANCTUS: “Santo, Santo, Santo,” an Argentinean folk tune, put into Waltz time with a distinct touch of Nashville.

“In the fullness of time you sent Jesus, in every respect human as we are, to grow up in a small town in Galilee speaking with a distinct accent, far from the seat of religious and civil power. Beside Jacob’s well he was moved by an encounter with a minority woman to disclose his messianic identity.”

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS with people coming down the aisles to take communion by intinction.

MUSIC DURING COMMUNION was a very moving experience.
The choir, with soloists sang “Down to the Water to Pray.” It gave me chills when the drum came in as I was standing in line to receive communion. After that, the South African freedom song “Freedom is Coming” was sung by the choir.

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

At this point in the 11:00 service, the little glass topper to the Christ candle fell and broke, perhaps signifying that the light of Christ could not be contained. Or, maybe the candle had just melted too much.

SONG OF RESPONSE: “Day by Day” from Godspell with the congregation singing along with the band

BENEDICTION from Annie

THE CONGREGATIONAL RESPONSE: refrain from “Here I Am, Lord”

POSTLUDE: “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison (of Beatles fame) performed by the band

Tour de Nashville

For a lot of the year, my roommates and I have been talking about how we would like to take a day and visit one another’s workplaces. Today was the day. The only time any of us had ever been to see where each of us spends our days was in our first week here. That was the first time any of us had been to our workplaces, and the first time any of us had personally met those with whom we would be working. It was great to be able to actually see and meet the people and places that we discuss in our evenings together.

Here’s how our day of touring around the city went, after Tara and I made a quick trip to the Green Hills Starbucks for a little bit of waking assistance (not that we’re the two in the house that actually need it).

Stop 1: The Campus for Human Development
We spent about an hour at the Campus, where things were pretty quiet. I took everybody around on a little tour, showing them all of my hang-outs, from the support desk, to the mail room, to my office. Speaking of my office, it has recently been cleaned out. I share it with my fellow intern Jana, who will sadly be finishing her internship in a few weeks, and we cleaned up our office for the first time this year two weeks ago during our Campus clean-up day. We have been having a mouse problem, and we realized that the cause may have been the big pile of popcorn kernels that was on our floor behind our lovely popcorn machine, which is kind of a nice conversation piece for our office. We also cleaned up some of the half-full coffee mugs and dirty dishes that were left by the previous occupant of our room when it was used for case management over a year ago. We added some additional artwork (made by our participants) to go with the scary painting of a former Jesuit volunteer whose teeth and gums were portrayed in a slightly unflattering manner. I accidentally pulled our curtains down, which were way too long for our window anyway and I think were bed sheets in a former life. Unfortunately, there have still been mice, so the exterminator has been called. Nevertheless, my office is in much better shape and I’ve probably spent more time in there in the last two weeks than I have in the last eight months.

Okay—back to the tour. The most exciting thing that happened while we were at the Campus was passing out lunch tickets at 10:00 in the morning. They also got to watch me help a woman get her state ID card, which was a thrill, I’m sure. I was a little disappointed that nothing else was going on or that my participant friends didn’t seem to have much life or personality, though Patrick got to have a pretty good conversation with Richard, one of our more unique people.

Stop 2: Conexión Americas
Tara’s workplace is slightly different from mine. Her office, which is very large, with nice paintings and brightly colored walls includes a window that looks out on the building across the street, which is the Nashville Music Writers Association office. She says that there is usually someone on the porch playing the guitar and singing. Music Row is a little different than the 8th and Division area. We got to meet a few of her co-workers, which was fun. Patrick got the chance to change the light bulb in Maria Clara’s office. She is one of Tara’s bosses, and a co-founder of Conexión Americas. Conexión is an awesome organization that works to promote the integration of Hispanic immigrants into the community. Tara organizes a conversation program (“Conversemos”) that pairs English and Spanish speakers for help in breaking down language barriers, or borders, you might say. Tara had us stuff some brochures that will be distributed at upcoming Cinco de Mayo festivals around the community.

Stop 3: Presbytery of Middle Tennessee meeting
Susan called me as we were driving from Conexión Americas to the Korean Presbyterian Church of Nashville near Brentwood to the Middle Tennessee Presbytery meeting we had been scheduled to give a presentation at. She let us know that the meeting was running about a half hour ahead of schedule. We had planned to get there about a half hour or 25 minutes before we were scheduled on the docket, so things were going to be tight. As we walked in the door, the end of the commissioning service for the Guatemalan mission trip participants was ending, which was the cue that we were next. Fortunately, we arrived with about 30 seconds to spare. Each of us, along with Susan, told about the program and the experiences we have had this year. Many people stopped to talk to us afterward. I met several people who had connections to the Campus, and it was nice to see many familiar faces there. Nothing gets me excited like a good presbytery meeting (really—I know it’s sad) so I was definitely in my element. The Korean Presbyterian Church prepared an outstanding lunch, which we washed down with a little cup of Presbyterian Coffee Project fair trade coffee.

Stop 4: The Toolshed
We changed into more comfortable clothes/shoes for the rest of the day. We also enjoyed some Diet Coke with Lime.

Stop 5: Martha O’Bryan Center
Chasie works in the middle of Nashville’s oldest and largest housing projects: James A. Cayce Homes. They are row after row of small red brick two-story apartment buildings. After dark, this is an area where shootings are common. We arrived at MOB, a Presbyterian supported organization, about a half hour before the after school program began. We saw “Ms. Chasie’s” office, which might have even topped Tara’s in niceness. Both of them have offices nicer than anyone at the Campus has, so I was jealous! I admired the nice pictures kids had drawn for her on her bulletin board, including an apology letter she received from a little kid. We met some of the staff members, and then went with Chasie and the elementary program director to pick up a group of children from Kirkpatrick Elementary School. We walked back with the kids, and I was very impressed by the way Chasie works with them and the relationships she has developed with them and their families. The kids were working on their homework when we left.

Stop 6: Preston Taylor Ministries
PTM, the after school program where Patrick works, just moved into a new building about a month ago. I left that beautiful new building with a great deal of respect for what Patrick deals with each day. He is challenged with somehow bringing hope and order out of some of the most chaotic kids I’ve ever seen. His boss, Chan, had us help with some of the reading groups. “Mr. Patrick” put me with the kindergarten kids, and I was a little overwhelmed. I was with a more regular volunteer, who was fortunately there, or I may not have made it out of the room alive. I had a few of the girls read me some books, which they did in between jumping up on top of the table and hitting me. It did make me feel a little bit better that the regular volunteer couldn’t control them any better than I could. I was thoroughly impressed with what PTM is able to do with such a small staff (pretty much just Chan, Patrick and a few other volunteers). We played jump rope with the kids before they left. I would probably take up drinking if I had to work with kids every day.

Stop 7: Second Presbyterian Church
After putting a lasagna in the oven, Tara and I headed over to the church for a lecture given by Rev. Mark Davis, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. It was a very interesting talk about aesthetics and art in worship that involved a discussion of the level of thought we put into flowers in worship.

Stop 8: The couches
We ended the night a few minutes ago with a great talk about everything we had done during the day. What great people I have been blessed to live with, and what amazing things we get to do and see every day.

I better go to bed now, I have to get up early to make monkey bread to take to our Campus staff retreat tomorrow.