An Understaffed School and a Kid who should’ve Been There.

Today, Manda and I got up early and went to school with her aunt, who is a Kindergarten teacher in Oakland.  Despite the fact that the riots over Oscar Grant’s murder were going on, we didn’t see any signs.  We got to the school at about 8:00 am, thirty minutes before the students.  Her aunt had warned us that her class was poorly behaved, so we were somewhat braced (plus, I’m sure most of you know how much I deeply love children).

We sat in the back of the class, and as the students came in, we just hung out and worked on stuff.  Her aunt introduced us and then began to teach.  And that’s when everything went insane.  Fifteen students attended that day (apparently something like five were missing).  About four of them were exceptionally well-behaved and showed a desire to learn.  The rest were variously distracted – probably the worst student spent most of the day rolling around on the floor or crawling behind the other students.  It turns out that she was a crack baby who had ADHD, but whose mother won’t (or can’t?) get her diagnosed/treated/medicated.  As Manda’s aunt said, “She talks all the time, but most of the time, you can tell she doesn’t realize it.”

We watched her try to teach the students the different between a long E and a short E.  For an hour.  The actual lesson lasted about 5 minutes; the rest of the hour was spent corralling students – all ten or so of the crazy ones.

I was shocked at how awful the class was.  I’m sure Manda’s aunt could have done some more creative classroom management, but even still, she has far too many students to be by herself – especially with so many students from a lower economic background.  This was my first chance to see the true effects of disparity in education, and it wasn’t pretty.  I’m sure that such a classroom situation wouldn’t have happened across the Bay in San Francisco.

At lunchtime, Manda and I drove to a little Mexican place nearby for lunch.  When we entered the building, the waitress called out, “Buenos Dias!” and never once tried to speak English with us – I’ve seldom been more grateful for Manda.   And the food was – without question and unsurprisingly – the best Mexican I’ve ever had.

On our way back, we were driving down the street when – from our left, where there was only a sidewalk – came the thumping bass of a huge car stereo system blasting some quite obscene rap.  We looked around to try to figure out where it was coming from and saw this person drive (or rather pedal) by us:

Those have to be what, twelves at least?  And how was this thing even powered?  Pedal power?

He was riding around for most of the afternoon.  And he most definitely should have been in school.

A Good Ole Fashioned (Post-European) American Diner

Manda and I flew on Midwest Airlines to San Fancisco.  We left at 10:50 but arrived at 12:30 (which was really 2:30 according to our tummies).  We were served warm chocolate chip cookies on the plane, but no meal.  We took the Super Shuttle (which I highly recommend) to her aunt’s apartment, and then we got settled in and went out for lunch.  At 5:00 pm local time.

We ate at Mel’s Diner – the famous drive-in featured in film American Graffiti and on which the TV show Happy Days was based.  Mel’s is an American tradition; Manda had a patty melt while I had a burger and fries; we both enjoyed milk shakes with our meals, and a tall, cool glass of lemonade (in retrospect, the only way we could’ve been more American was if we’d polished it off with apple pie, which I was far too stuffed to do).

Mmm… tastes like freedom!

As I was sitting in the diner, examining the remains of my meal, I thought, ‘This is American food.  This is an American setting.’  And I realized that perhaps no other era of our history (excepting possibly the Revolutionary and Civil wars) has been so idealized as the 1950s – the birth of rock-n-roll, of healthy rebellion, of Grease and diners and the Fonz.  Of the Beaver and Father Knows Best.  We overlook that this was the era before Civil Rights, before regard for environmental stewardship.  When women were not welcomed in the workforce and the Cold War was birthed.

But none of that was in Mel’s today.  It was good ole fashioned innocent America.  So it was about that time in my musings that our waiter – Sammy – came up to ask if I needed more lemonade.  As he walked away with my empty glass, I realized that he was Hispanic.

And something about that fact brought a smile to my face.  Because it’s becoming less and less possible for America to deny our multicultural heritage.  More and more, even our white-washed traditions are becoming inescapably brown, and sitting here less than two weeks from the inauguration of our first non-white (whatever that even still means) president, I couldn’t be happier.

Here’s to America, in all her glory.

Mountains and the Pacific

I’ve been to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico several times each.  But until today, I’d never been west of Colorado.  On the plane ride, Manda and I were catching up on Carnivale (we’re well into Season 2 at this point!), and at the end of an episode, I pulled up the window shade to see the Rocky Mountains below.  They were breathtaking.  I could not have imagined how beautiful they were, spread out jagged and craggy below us.  As we approached one particularly gentle slope, it was slowly transformed into what I realized was the continental shelf – one dramatic cliff that dropped sharply off from west to east.  Everywhere were patches of snow interrupted by the rocky spikes of the mountains.

After dinner, we drove around San Francisco, and and one point, were driving down a road that took us straight to the Pacific.  We stopped so I could get out and take it in – fortunately, it was nearly sunset.

And you can’t really even see the waves.  Or the surfers.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a Mid-west kid, but oceans and mountains are the best ways I’ve ever experienced to connect with God.  Maybe it’s because they’re so big.  Too big for me to wrap my brain around.  I have to sort of abandon myself to them to take them in in any sort of meaningful way, to stop trying to encompass or understand and just experience.

And because I’m an academic at heart, I spend a lot of time trying to understand God.  It’s good to remember than an essential component of my spirituality is just to experience God on God’s terms.

2 Awesome DJs and a Wedding Show (or: WE WON!!!)

Today was the 22nd Annual Bridal Show in Jefferson City.  Manda had already been planning to attend because she’s a bride-to-be, but as soon as we got entered in the Wedding Contest, I had to go as well (I mean, I got to go as well).

We left Columbia right after Sunday School (unfortunately we had to miss Dr. Bean’s sermon on the Exodus, but I plan to catch it online) with Manda’s mom, cousin and brother’s girlfriend (whose name is also Amanda).  We had bad directions (for the record the first and only time GoogleMaps has ever failed us.  I still recommend it), and they ended up taking us to the wrong YMCA anyway (yes, feel free to do the dance while you sing the song in your head).  We were supposed to arrive at 11:00; we didn’t get there until 11:30, which was still 20 minutes before they needed us backstage.  We checked in with the DJs – Cosmo and JC – and then browsed a while before heading to the front.

The brought all three of the finalist couples on stage and then announced that we were the winners to all five persons actually watching us in the crowd (including the three persons we brought with us) and live on the air.  We stuck around and claimed our prize folder and chatted with the DJs, who are very cool guys.  We talked about the contest (they told us we’d received something like 2800 of the 3600 total votes) and they complimented us on the fact that we’d dressed to match as they took our picture:

For the record, Manda’s hose are purple.  And the folder we’re holding is Disney Princess, which – as J.C. commented – is less appropriate that one might think, given that none of them are wearing white.

We visited the vendors and called our friends and families to let them know we’d won.  Cosmo and JC asked us how we’d gotten so many of the popular votes and we told them that we have a fierce social network.  And that’s the truth – we asked once or possibly twice for everyone to vote for us and it spread like wildfire.  All of our family and friends forwarded it to their friends and so on and so on.  Truthfully, in the end, we believe that the biggest part of why we won was not our essay or our picture (which also came from our community – massive props to J-Nic for that awesome photo!).  It was everyone.

So thanks… from both of us.  The wedding is July 25.  We hope to see you there!

A Warning Against Bullies

Because we’re running low on educational space at my church, my Sunday School class meets across the street at the elementary school.

Where we are treated to propaganda like this:

Scary, no?  Especially his thugs.

A Wedding Contest

So last week (or possibly the week before), Ashley found a “Win a Free Wedding” competition that a radio station in town is hosting – Y107, a pop/R&B station.  In 107 words or less, Manda and I had to tell them why we deserved a free wedding (and they really do pay for a ton of stuff).  Since Manda thinks I’m the better wordsmith, I was assigned this task.

I put it off until the last day possible – last Friday, and then wrote up my post (which, according to Microsoft Word word count, was exactly 107 words!).  As I looked over some of the wall posts on the entry site, I got depressed – I was pretty sure we weren’t going to win, as our story isn’t tragic or especially dramatic.  I just wrote about the life we envision together – serving each other and the outcast among us, and how winning some stuff for our wedding would help us keep costs down and be able to give more.

And then I promptly forgot about it, sure that we didn’t have a chance.

This morning, however, as I was working on my sermon for Sunday, Thom called me.

“Hello?”

“Do you feel like a whore?” (Thom)

“What?!”

“Do you even listen to that kind of music?“

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

“So I guess I’m going to have to go online and vote for you.“

As it turns out, Thom was listening to Y107 (for reasons undisclosed to me), and hear our names.  Manda and I are one of three finalist couples selected from over 100 stories submitted.

You can vote for us if you go to www.y107.com and scroll down (it’s on the left side of the page, and YES this is a shameless plug

It’d be pretty cool to win, truthfully.  We’ll have to see

An Email with a Spirituality Other than That with which I’m Comfortable…

I am one of three persons at our church to whom emails from our website come.  We have a ‘Prayer Request’ form on our website, so members frequently send us prayer requests either for the staff only or to share with the email prayer list.  But occasionally (once a week or so), we get essentially a Spam email – a random person who contacts our church asking for money or something.

Today, I received this email.  I’ve taken out the name of the house mentioned, and edited the spelling and punctuation to make it a bit more legible, but it was sent anonymously and was marked to share with the staff only AND the whole prayer list.  Take a look:

Pray whenever a drug addict, dealer, thief, troublemaker or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* house, they will feel and think a colony of fire ants lives inside them, leaving and entering through their mouths,noses and ears.  Pray whenever a drug addict, dealer, thief, troublemaker or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* house,they will see,smell,feel and think the 10 plagues of egypt and armageddon are both happening to them,and going on around them at the same time when they are within 500 yards of ******* house. Pray whenever a drug addict, dealer, thief, troublemaker or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* house,they will feel and think their bodies are radioactive, rotten, stinky and maggot, lice, tick and flea infested when they are within 500 yards of ******* house.Pray whenever a drug addict, drug dealer, thief, troublemaker or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* house,they will feel and think their brains are constantly trying to escape from their heads violently when within 500 yards of ******* house.  Pray whenever a drug addict, drug dealer, thief, troublemaker, thief or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* house, they will feel and think that demons are constantly standing, sitting or hanging on their bodies all the time when within 500 yards of ******* house.  Pray whenever a drug user, addict, dealer, troublemaker, thief or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* they will think they are in hell, they will see, feel and think they are also in a giant snow globe being shaken, and they will think giant demons are looking at them from outside the snow globe also when within 500 yards of ******* house. Pray whenever a drug user, addict, dealer, gang member, troublemaker, thief or criminal goes within 500 yards of ******* they will feel, see, hear and think every human spirit, animal spirit and demon in the universe are possessing their bodies one after another, constantly when within 500 yards of ******* house.

So, what are your thoughts?  Is this a good prayer to pray?

The Taco Den (Nowhere, KS)

Today, Manda and I drove from my dad’s house to Atchison, KS to attend her friend Merissa’s wedding.  On the way, we wanted to stop and grab a quick bite to eat.

Unfortunately, there’s not much in the way of… what’s the word… civilization between Overbrook and Atchison.  Our one glimmer of ::ahem:: hope came in the form of a homemade sign.  It was made out of bright, neon-green poster board (like you can buy at WalMart or Hobby Lobby), attached by means unknown to a telephone pole along the highway, and on it, in the middle, in thick, black stenciled letters was written TACO DEN.

That’s it.  No directions.  No distance.  No other information of any kind.  Of course, immediately questions sprang into my mind.  Where is this TACO DEN?  What sort of place is it that they advertise with crude, handmade signs?

As it turned out, about 5-7 miles up the road, we saw a sign for a little row of shops in which was – the TACO DEN!!  Our only other option (according to TomTom) was to wait for Atchison, so Manda looked at me and asked:

“Are we feeling brave?”

I was, so we pulled in.  And the TACO DEN was closed.

Fortunately for us, however, it was next to a tiny grocery store with a deli.  So we got freshly fried chicken strips, jalapeno poppers and pasta salad from a girl with a lip piercing and marilyn who seemed shocked and appalled that anyone would eat her food.  But it wasn’t bad, all things considered.  Still though… the TACO DEN would’ve been fun.

 

Maybe next time.

Rachel and Otto

Tonight Manda and I are in Overbrook, KS with my dad, step-mom and grandmother.  Dad and Jan are in their church’s Christmas Cantata, and tonight their church performed it for a homeless ministry in Topeka, KS.  We were fortunate to get to go.

After the cantata, we met two residents – a woman named Rachel and a guy named Otto.  Rachel caught my attention during the cantata to ask if she could see the book I’m reading – Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf (an amazing, brilliant and wonderful book).  Afterwards, she mentioned that she’s an avid reader and collects Bibles among other things.  We chatted about quite a few things, including gender.  She recommended a book to Manda called The Power of a Woman’s Words, and she challenged us to consider the power of our words.  She mentioned that she’d been more careful lately to watch what she says (“Though I still slip up sometimes; I’m not perfect yet, after all!”) and she concluded by announcing proudly, “My name’s Rachel!  Jacob had to work twice as hard to get me!”

I laughed at her self-aware, corny joke, but then I marveled as this woman pulled her shoulders back and announced proudly (to an imagined suitor), “You have to work twice as hard for me!”  Here was a woman who had internalized the self-respect that comes from realizing that you are the precious image of God.  And maybe it’s just because on the way home I listened to my parents discuss my two not-quite-seventeen-year-old, high-school cousins who revel in their newly-discovered sexuality by self-identifying as ’sluts’, but I was proud to call Rachel a sister in that moment.  I was challenged by how thoroughly she’d identified with her scriptural namesake.  And I left refreshed.

But not before I met Otto.  Otto approached as we were talking with Rachel and thanked us profusely for coming down to spend an evening with them.  This guy – whom I assume was homeless or in some state of desperate need – beamed when he talked of how much he’d enjoyed the evening.  But then he looked knowingly at us and beamed, “You know, lots o’ folks is alone this time a’year.  Them over in the retirement homes, they got no one to come visit them.  That’s why we’re sure grateful for you folks.”  (He then apologized for his country accent, which – given that we’re in KS – I thought was unnecessary.)

Again, I was struck by the power of gratitude.  Volf’s book is about understanding truly and accepting the grace of a God who gives of Godself to us.  And here was a man who – despite having nothing (at least comparatively) – loved and cared and gave.  He gave his love and his self to those who were alone and destitute.

It was a powerful night.

A Book, My Dad and God

So I’m reading Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip Hallie (Thom got it for me for my birthday).  It’s a book about the town of Le Chambon, France – a Huguenot village that resisted Nazi German forces for several years using only non-violent means.  Right now, Hallie is exploring the early life of the leading pastor in the town, Andre Trocme, and what effect his experiences had on shaping the plight of Le Chambon.

Trocme was a part of a small group of teens who connected with God on an intimate, personal level as a community.  Their private experiences were always a part of their collective experience of God.  And these moments were what profoundly affected Trocme, even after his exposure to the Social Gospel of 1920s America.  As Hallie writes:

“[Trocme] found the Social Gospel too secular, too rational for his deeply devout mind… It wanted men and women to use the physical and social sciences to make human beings masters and possessors of nature, and conquerors of disease and poverty…  As much as the Marxists did, they despised the religion that is the opiate of the people, that makes people passive instruments and victims of a society that exploits the poor…  On all these counts, Trocme agreed with the proclaimers of the Social Gospel.  For him, religion was a revolutionary force, driving people to bring loving cooperation into every aspect of social life. But both the Communists and the Social Gospel people lacked one element that was central in Andre Trocme’s mind: the person-to-God piety that every adolescent in [his adolescent gatherings] felt.  For Trocme, only a person’s conscious obedience to the demands of God, could arouse and direct the powers that could make the world better than it is.“

Trocme’s dad was stern and distant, much like my own father, who by his own recent admission has spent most of the last 20+ years of his faith journey disconnected from God.

I think what frightens me is how closely my relationship with God mirrors my relationship to my Dad and his to God.  I do a lot of ministry not out of disbelief by any means, but often without deep attention to the passions of God.  I am a thinker when I interact with God; I don’t usually feel.  My passion and my intellectual pursuits of God seldom run together.  The moments in which they do are truly transformational and unforgettable.  But I’ll often get to the end of a week, look back and wonder that I can see God’s fingerprints, God’s own handiwork in the ministry I’ve done, given the poor extent to which I’ve sought him/her out.

Of course this comes in waves, and overall I like to think I’m getting much better at relating to a close God (not a distant one).  And I think my dad is too.