We are poets and didn't know it

I didn't think I would be posting while here at Ghost Ranch, but I am in the computer lab typing out this wonderful poem that the four NEP volunteers have written, and I thought I should give its debut in cyberspace. Each site is responsible for performing a "minimally informative" skit or something (a poem in our case) this evening, so here is our contribution...


UNTITLED
by Patrick, Tara, Jeff and Chasie

We like your skits,
but we wrote a poem.
About our life
in our new home.

That home is Nashville, Tennessee,
Jeff, Tara, Patrick...and Chasie.

We live in a toolshed,
it’s kind of small.
Most people don’t realize it’s a house at all.

We have two love seats,
that’s all that will fit.
We spend time together,
because there’s nowhere else to sit.

It takes two giant ssteps to get to Second Pres,
where apparently we’re on the staff,
or so the bulletin says.

We use sticky traps and prayer to keep the brown recluses away,
but clearly they don’t work,
‘cause we find them every day.

But our work is the main thing that we do.
We don’t just hang out with our neighbor, Emmylou.

Jeff works with the homeless.
His job is wowsers!
He helps them wash their soiled trousers.

Chasie makes kids laugh
when she can’t dance,
and helps women get their GED
for a better chance.

Tara helps Hispanic people immigrate,
and gets mad when gringos like to hate.

Preston Taylor is Patrick’s new hood.
He helps kids read and write good.

We’re not country stars yet,
and we may never be.
But we’re one step closer,
living in Nashville, Tennessee.

Al Gore's trash is another man's treasure

Here is another post of random bits of information that don't necessarily fit into any other posts. Enjoy!

SIXTH FLOOR OF THE LOEWS VANDERBILT

This Monday, I got made fun of for being excited about going to Al Gore's office to pick up items he was donating to the Campus for Human Development. As the true politics lover that I am, I volunteered to go with two other staff members and an Odyssey guy (from the long-term homelessness recovery program of the Campus) to pick up five boxes and a computer from the office of "The Honorable Al Gore and Tipper Gore" in suite 620 of the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel downtown. Unfortunately my neighbor Al must have not known that I would be there since he was not there to greet me. He left that duty to his receptionist. We did a lot of laughing about how we must have looked pulling up to a swanky hotel in our huge old light blue van that was full of trash and smelled terrible.

When we got back to the Campus, of course, I couldn't wait to go through Al's old things, which were mostly books. He donated exactly what you would expect Al Gore to: mostly books on the environment, along with several prepublication copies of political books. There was one anti-George Bush book included, which I thought was funny.



FROM HIGH PLACES TO LOW ONES

Lest you think all of my time in Nashville is spent hanging out with Emmylou Harris and Nicole Kidman -- and you can trust me on this one -- it is not.

Last week at the Campus I had some unprecedented contact with some human waste. On Tuesday, a gentleman wet his pants and handed them to me (and they went in the trash pretty quick). On Wednesday, I helped a guy who didn't make it to the bathroom get some new clothes--not just wet this time. After I was telling a co-worker about the aforementioned incidences, she said, "Jeff, I wouldn't come in tomorrow to see what you'll get on day 3."


JEREMY IRONS AND THE MUMMY

One day last week, I got the chance to go on a Campus field trip to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts' exhibit "Egypt," which is apparently the largest collection of authentic ancient Egyptian artifacts ever exhibited in the US. It was fairly interesting. I enjoyed the mumified dog and cat especially. The exhibit was one where each person wears headphones and gets narration by pressing certain numbers into their personal keypads according to what exhibit he or she is at. Egypt was narrated by "academy award winning actor" Jeremy Irons. The four staff members and four Odyssey guys who went enjoyed their afternoon.


DANGER LURKING: THE BROWN RECLUSE

On our first evening here, after being told that the last person to work where I am working through NEP was hit, our site coordinator Susan also shared that our house was full of brown recluse spiders. Way to save the juicy details until after we're already here!

We have caught several brown recluses, one of which is pictured at right. They sprayed for them before we came, and the good people at the Cook Pest Control company left us a whole stack of sticky spider traps, which is where we have been finding the brown recluses, which are easy to identify because, aside from the fact that they are huge, have fiddles on their backs. Though none of us has been bit yet, the brown recluse problem has been a good source of conversation and joking around Second. Drunk people are the least of my concerns -- we've got poisonous spiders lurking!


ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE

As part of the NEP experience, each of us has been assigned a mentor for the year. I was fortunate enough to get two mentors (I must have been an obvious case of special need!) who have some connections to home. Revs. John and Annie McClure are Presbyterian pastors. He is a professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and she works for the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, though her office is at United Methodist Publishing here in Nashville. John was a friend and professor of Lant Davis (Central Pres-TH pastor) at Louisville Seminary. I should report that I hear Lant was an exceptional student, by the way. John also taught my roommate Patrick's pastor from home. John and Annie's daughter, Leslie, is a singer, and we NEP volunteers enjoyed attending a concert of hers a few weeks ago at which John played guitar in the band. The McClures took me out for dinner tonight.


FRUIT TEA, ANYONE?

One of the biggest cultural differences I've noticed here is in the iced tea department. Aside from the familiar sweetened vs. unsweetened thing (and they do love their extremely sweet tea here), they also serve fruit tea to no end. It's like iced tea mixed with orange juice or something, and is pretty good.


MEETING OF THE MINDS

We had a meeting today at the Campus of the "high ups" and the four interns. They call us volunteers "interns" for lack of a better word, though they say they don't like that title since they consider each one of us a part of the regular staff. Typically the Campus will have one intern in any given year, but this year there are four, which has given them an unexpected amount of help which they're really loving. I am here with the Presbyterians, there is a Jesuit volunteer in a program similar to NEP, there is a recent high school graduate who is taking a year off before she starts at Vandy next year, and there is a Vanderbilt student who is interning there as a part of a class.

Anyway, today we met with Father Charlie Strobel, who is the founder of the Campus and a nationally recognized leader on homelessness issues. He is officially retired from his day to day duties at the Campus as its executive director, but I've seen him there most days. We are going to be meeting with him as the intern group on a near weekly basis to debrief our experiences and to share in fellowship with one another away from work. We discussed how difficult it is to talk about what we do on a daily basis with people who don't have any idea what we're doing or what working with the homeless is like. As our director Rachel said, people who work at the Campus say things like, "I was in the alley the other day and there was this guy who was trying to hide his crack pipe from me and this other guy who was standing there naked, and I looked down and noticed I stepped in some gum and I was really upset about having to clean off my shoe." People in the "outside world" don't always see the world the way people who work in the world of the Campus do.

Charlie described the world in our meeting today as:

1. small
2. armed
3. unequal
4. interconnected
5. poor

Are we engaged in the world as Charlie Strobel describes it? Or, are we living a life of comfort?


TAKING A VACATION

The blog will be quiet for a few days. The four NEP volunteers are heading to Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico tomorrow morning. Our flight leaves Nashville at 7:30am, so we will be up early. We will be joining other Young Adult Volunteers from the other sites around the U.S. for our National YAV Orientation Event. We will be getting back here late on Sunday, so I will hopefully be posting some pictures and reflections from our little vacation.

A tale of two organ donors

Link to a good article about my church(es) from today's Tribune-Star from my favorite T-S columnist, formerly from the San Francisco Chronicle, Stephanie Salter:

http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_266211636.html

Welcome to the Toolshed

“Hi, you’ve reached the smallest, greenest house in Green Hills. Leave a message for Chasie, Patrick, Tara, or Jeff, and we’ll get back to you.” -our answering machine

It is no lie to say that we live in the smallest and greenest house in the neighborhood. In fact, many people apparently don’t realize that it is a house where people live. We have had people come up onto our patio and use our hose. Yesterday, we had to do some creative driving to get out of our driveway since someone parked right in front of it. We don’t know if our house, which is called “the toolshed” by people in the church, is painted dark green because that’s what paint was available or because they want this little cement block and wood structure to blend in as much as possible to the leafy Green Hills neighborhood we live in. I think the Toolshed looks like a cabin from some summer camp from the outside. The inside is very nice, and has been well maintained. Apparently our “less than 600 square foot” house at the rear of the church property actually was used to store tools for a while.

I have a feeling that by July, it will not be the cramped living conditions of the NEP house that will be the lasting memory from this year, but it will be the people who lived in it and the experiences we have shared that will stay with each of us. As Chasie said the other evening, “can you imagine how close we will be by the end of this year?”

Here is an introduction to the four Young Adult Volunteers living and serving together this year with the Nashville Epiphany Project.

Originally from Richardson, Texas, Patrick recently graduated from UT-Austin, where he majored in mechanical engineering. He is a big Longhorns football fan as we have witnessed on the last few Saturdays. Patrick was involved in his campus ministry at UT and while there felt like he might be feeling a call to ministry, though he is still discerning whether that call is to seminary and professional ministry or not. Patrick has one younger brother. Patrick is a laid back guy, and is always willing to be our resident expert in doing things like using tools and putting up shelves. He introduced us to a terrible card game called Set. He gets up early and rides his bike, making the rest of us feel guilty.

In Nashville, Patrick is working at Preston Taylor Ministries. PTM works with children who live in the Preston Taylor homes, a public housing project, with a strong emphasis on increasing reading skills. Patrick is coordinating a lunch buddy program, and has been eating lunch in school cafeterias many days.

Tara is from Blowing Rock, North Carolina, near Boone in the mountains. She graduated this spring from Wake Forest, home of the Demon Deacons, with a double major in Spanish and religion. Her interests include BBT (Barbara Brown Taylor), fake banana flavoring, and DCWL (Diet Coke with Lime). Tara is passionate about social justice issues, including those related to Latin America. She is thinking about going to seminary, though she is not sure exactly what she wants to do after that yet. Tara has one younger sister.

Tara is working with Conexion Americas this year in Nashville. Conexion is a fairly new organization that advocates for Nashville’s
quickly growing Hispanic population, and helps new immigrants adapt to life here. Tara has had the chance to be involved in responding to local issues like a proposed English-only ordinance and hate crimes against Latinos.

Chasie (rhymes with Stacy) is our resident Tennessean, hailing from Chattanooga. She graduated from Rhodes College, a small Presbyterian school in Memphis, with a major in Spanish. Chasie is very close to her three siblings, all of whom are younger. She wishes that she could find someone to play tennis with, and enjoys running on occasion. She also likes to sing.

Chasie’s site placement in Nashville is with the Martha O’Bryan Center, which serves the residents of the James Cayce Homes, Nashville’s most densely populated area of poverty, located in an area where crime and violence is commonplace. She has been experiencing many of the services that Martha O’Bryan offers in her first two weeks, but will probably be working mostly with adult education programs.

Well, if you’re reading this you probably already know me, but I’ll tell you about myself anyway. I am from Terre Haute, Indiana, and graduated in August from Indiana State University with a major in political science. I am close to my family
and have a younger brother and sister. I enjoy music and dislike playing games that use reasoning and thinking such as Scrabble. I was beat by a score of 165-50 by a homeless man
just this week.

I am working this year at the Campus for
Human Development, which works with Nashville’s homeless population. My day at work typically includes working at the support desk, loading the vans that go to various locations, sitting in the day room talking with people and providing hospitality, sorting mail, working in the store, sorting mail, entering points for use in the store, handing out mail, and sorting mail.

Steeple Draws Faithful Again

Link to article from The Tennessean

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The Steeple Raising

First picture: The view from our patio at 7:30am today. Second picture: The view from our patio at 12:30pm today.

* * * * * * *

Three years ago this past Sunday, much of Second Presbyterian Church’s building burned in an early morning fire, an event that has certainly shaped this congregation’s identity. This afternoon on my lunch break, I was, as a newcomer, able to witness a significant step in the recovery from that fire—the raising of the new steeple. Though the steeple was in place by the time I could get here, I joined several dozen people -- church members, staff members, neighbors and local news crews -- on the lawn for the climactic event: the placing of the cross.

Today’s events were so meaningful for the people of this church who lost the building where their weddings were held, where their children were baptized, where they had nodded off during a sermon or two. Second is such a vibrant congregation, and you could feel the excitement for the future as their new building comes together. Two Sundays ago, an open house of the facility as it exists now was held. As we NEP Volunteers walked through the new building, which is very much still under construction, we commented on how this church was building its mission right into its new facility. The new portion of the building includes the sanctuary, which will have a round configuration, the “Peaceable Kingdom,” which is Second’s church school program, new youth rooms, and a cyber café. As my mentor John McClure said, churches used to have parlors with Victorian furniture, now they have cyber cafes. There is also ample space for the Room in the Inn program, which is actually run by the Campus for Human Development. Various churches around town (currently 150 participate) house homeless people for the night in the cold months (November-March).

We have remarked several times about the unbelievable number of outreach projects that Second Presbyterian undertakes. Second has a high commitment to speaking out on social justice issues such as the death penalty, racism, homelessness, poverty, violence, and gay rights. They are a unique progressive voice here in the Bible Belt. As our pastor Jim Kitchens says, Second Presbyterian is located between Belmont University (formerly Southern Baptist) and Lipscomb University (Church of Christ) and to the left of both.

Worship at Second currently takes place in their fellowship center, which was built just a few years before the fire. I am most excited about the new sanctuary opening in the late fall to be able to hear the great music that happens here in a good acoustic space. There is a lot of music in worship, and the choir is fantastic. The last two weeks, there has been a lot of special music, including a guitar and fiddle duo. The fiddle player is from Patty Loveless’ band. They are currently using a small Rodgers electronic organ, but there are plans for a nice pipe organ in the new space. I haven’t found anyone who can name the organ builder yet.

Perhaps the best thing we’ve found about Second Pres so far is the great hospitality they have shown us. They have welcomed us as a part of their congregation from the minute we arrived. Two Sundays ago on the tour of the new sanctuary, each person was invited to write their name on the cement floor over which a nicer floor will be placed. They made sure that the four of us, though we’ll only be here for a year, got the chance to write a message and sign our names, which we did. Someday when they dig up the ruins of Second Presbyterian and put them in a museum, they will wonder who Jeff Moles, NEP Volunteer 2006-07 from Indiana was.

* * * * * * *

PHOTOS

Second Chances

Daryl Holton was supposed to die tonight. On behalf of the people of Tennessee, a lethal dose of electricity was to be sent through his body at 1:00 A.M. at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution about 10 miles from where I live. I got a phone call around 2:00 while I was heading to our “2:00 meeting” at the Campus that the 6^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Nashville granted a stay this afternoon in this case that stemmed from Mr. Holton’s violent killing of his four young children in 1997. Stacy Rector, the outgoing associate pastor at Second Presbyterian, and the incoming interim director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, had asked me to play the piano for an ecumenical prayer service this evening in East Nashville. So, my five minutes of practice for “What Wondrous Love is This” and “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” had been in vain. But, it was good news that the courts had granted a stay and Daryl Holton will live to see at least a few more days.

Tonight was my first Odyssey dinner at the Campus. As I’ve mentioned before, the Odyssey program is a residential treatment program to change the lives of those who are chronically homeless. Chronic homelessness means that someone has been homeless continuously for a year or has experienced several shorter incidences of homelessness over a period of four or five years. About 50% of those the Campus for Human Development serves fall into this category. Participants in Odyssey are chosen and commit to an extensive program of life changes through a span of at least two years. This treatment program is unlike most others in that it is more than one month long, so there is a much higher rate of success from Odyssey than from most other programs.

Every Monday night at 5:00, men from Odyssey, Odyssey alums, Campus staff and other guests (everyone is welcome!) gather for a meal. The meal is served family style, since this is at best an experience that most of these people haven’t had in a long time. Many Odyssey participants have never sat down to a meal with family in their entire lives. The indignity of meal tickets and having no control over what is served or how much of it one gets is a standard for most of the people when they enter this program. Tonight’s theme was Monday Night Football, and the meal was prepared by Mary, Martina and Maggie, three of the Campus staff members. Their “man food” meal consisted of pizza, buffalo wings, nachos, beans and brownies. After we ate, as is custom each week, each person in the room (about 40-50 people) shared their “high” and “low” of the week. Most of the lows dealt with the Tennessee Titans. The highs were truly inspiring. They ranged from visits to the state fair with families that hadn’t been seen in years, to general thanksgiving for being alive and healthy after the strains of addiction had torn down bodies and ruined relationships. What a feast it was as people shared their lives and joys over lovingly prepared “man food.”

Neither Daryl Holton nor drug addicted homeless people deserve to be rewarded for the bad choices they have made. Neither do any of us. It is truly amazing when people live out the image of God’s grace that is in each person, whether it is in a panel of judges giving a mentally ill man on death row a little bit of room for hope or in the giving of thanks over buffalo wings and pizza in a group of recovering addicts and formerly homeless men.

Our God, our help in ages past,

Our hope for years to come,

Our shelter from our stormy blast,

And our eternal home.

Jeff, Patrick, Tara and Chasie

We Are Bound Together

The Campus for Human Development can be an intimidating place to drive into. The entrance from 8^th Avenue is into an alley between the Campus buildings and the Davidson County Health Department’s Downtown Clinic for the Homeless. Many people are always hanging around the alley, and I’ve learned to take it slow when I’m turning into the alley so I don’t hit anybody. I’ve also learned to wave at the guys who are hanging around, some of whom are drinking out of bottles in paper bags or smoking something (probably not tobacco). What I have taken from my first week at the Campus is a realization of the remarkable similarities that I hold with these people.

I met Jimmie, a gentleman who is in the Campus’s Odyssey program, which is a residential treatment program for those who are chronically homeless. Whenever we see each other it’s “hey, Terre Haute—we’re cruisin’ the ‘Bash!” He lived in Terre Haute for a year and worked at the McDonald’s on Wabash Avenue.

Lunch is served at the Campus on Thursdays (and other locations on other days). I happened to be wearing an ISU shirt that day and I heard from across the room while I was waiting for another chair in the small dining area to open up so I could call the next number – “Home of the Sycamores!” A homeless gentleman who was waiting on a free lunch (which was great: lasagna, rolls, salad) played football for Indiana State in the 1980s. He wasn’t happy to learn that the Sycamores are on a pretty long losing streak. They won four games in his last season there. He lived in Cromwell Hall, and talked about the excitement of winning a big game against Wichita State.

The Campus also serves many musicians. One gentleman is a songwriter and has released CDs. There is a former political science professor among the ranks of Nashville’s homeless population who was forced to quit teaching when his schizophrenia became unmanageable.

Yesterday, I spent the entire morning in art class, which was very relaxing. An art teacher comes in to the Campus several days a week and helps teach the men to do different types of art. The immense artistic talent of those who come to the Campus is evident when you walk into the building. Many paintings and other artworks line the walls through the entire building. The art room is a true haven for these guys. Brick walls and large windows help inspire them to express themselves through artistic rather than violent and chemical means. Yesterday’s class consisted of only one participant, Troy, and two interns (I and John who is a student at Vanderbilt). It was great to just sit and talk with Troy and watch him paint a great picture of a cabin in the mountains, while I got to do a painting and got my first introduction to pastels. Edith, the teacher, is very talented at getting art out of people and teaching them different techniques. Some of the works produced in the art room will be shown in art shows this fall and sold so new art supplies can be purchased. It is one of many routes of healing that is offered at the campus.

I also attended my first AA meeting this week. Hi, my name is Jeff, and I’m not an alcoholic, but I was allowed to sit in on one of the two daily 12-step meetings the Campus provides. It was amazing to hear stories of lives transformed, and attempts at reconciliation with families and friends. The difficulties these men face in being immersed in a culture for which drinking and using is a means of survival are immense. These pressures are not that different from those that face all of us from time to time.

What incredible ties bind us all together, whether we live in a multi-million dollar home in Nashville’s Belle Meade area as many of the people from Second Presbyterian do, or in a cardboard box under the stairs of a downtown building as many of the people I work with at the Campus for Human Development do. It is when we become aware of those ties that we are able to see the image of God in our neighbors and find new ways of living that transform us and the entire body of Christ.

Straight from China: Sycamore Sam

My new laptop is here! I was able to get a Lenovo (formerly IBM) Thinkpad through the ISU laptop program, thanks to the generosity of my dear friends at Trinity Lutheran Church. Since it was purchased through Indiana State, all of the software and settings are already loaded, including--my favorite--the default desktop wallpaper that doesn't display the Windows XP or Lenovo logos, but Sycamore Sam just lounging around in front of his computer. It is nice to be connected again!

These are some pictures I have taken with my phone. This will give you a small sense of where I am. There will be much better pictures with people in them once my new computer arrives and I get my camera cable.
















"The Toolshed" aka our house (it's nice on the inside)

















The year-round Christmas tree at the Campus for Human Development, currently decorated with back-to-school items. Homeless people do not have the same rhythm of holidays and seasons that most people enjoy, so this is a way of connecting them with the rest of the world.
















The Support Desk at the Campus, where I will be working a lot of the time.
































The view downtown from the Campus for Human Development
















The very nice and large playground at 2nd Pres.