On our own now

2/6

Sunny day. Warmer. Steps are empty except for two African-American women well- dressed and with fine hats waiting for the bus to take them north for church. 

Arrive at SPSA to meet with our music staff and talk about our plans to go to volunteers in March for music and Christian Ed. And our desire to create community based decisions. We need to do this together. I momentarily left an envelope with checks in the men’s room. When I go back, it’s gone. There’s been a lot of issues like that here, including the Easter offering. Annoying to say the least.

Go upstairs to the sanctuary to join other West-Park folk arriving for our farewell. There was a day during my time when SPSA and West-Park were in very similar situations. Due to a variety of factors, they’ve moved ahead and created a healthy, vibrant community. Not my vision, but vital nonetheless. 

Experiencing all kinds of  feelings as I wait to speak. Pastor K calls me up. I recall the day we entered, the warm applause that greeted us. Talk about how we only intended to be there two years. Anticipated a triumphant exit and return to a restored building, renewed witness. And now we’ll have to renew that witness on our own.  I open my bag with my symbolic gifts. The gold paper crown thanking them for the royal treatment we received there. Our annual Dia de los tres Reyes Magos celebrations, our best sharing of who we were. Pastor K puts the crown on his head. The tarnished silver communion cup, weathered and showing the signs of time, of our struggle. But still silver, of value, of worth. Like us. And the pieces of red sandstone recently fallen from our building. The reason all this began in the first place. And who wouldn’t want  a piece of a landmarked building?

 Pastor K laughs and says they’ve got a few of those of their own. Hugs me. Asks all the West-Park people to stand. And I look out and to my surprise, see we’ve almost all come to say thanks. And again, warm applause washes over us. I thank them. Invite them to donate to our Souper Bowl collection. And to sign up to follow us on our journey.

I sit down. I still don’t like rising for the gospel. Not our tradition, all scripture being equal. He has a salt sermon, like I would have, though he goes a somewhat different direction. Waiting for the time when I  will share in consecrating and serving the eucharist. Images, memories filling my head and heart.  Moments, people. Experiences as we sought to continue our ministry here.

I remember new people coming. The Martinez family wedding. Baptizing Tim and Caroline’s first son and Ji Young’s daughter Miranda. With the old basin we brought with us. Kim’s viola. Celebrating Asian New Year.  Maria and her camera. Amanda’s first visit. Gathering around the communion table we wheeled down the street to remind us of home. Katherine by my side through all those liturgies. Amy and Juan playing, Philip singing, Andre's jazz psalms.

And loss. Filling the auditorium to overflowing with teenagers after Adham’s tragic death. Quiet services for BJ and Carol. The day Jim brought the specially carved box inlaid with Southwestern stones bearing Carol’s ashes with him to worship. All our nights in the homeless shelter. And so much more like an iphoto slide show passing through my head.  As I get up to serve, tears are welling up. We have been church here, despite all. 

I see P____ , dressed all in white, come  up and kneel before the candles, touch her fingers to the cross, to her lips. I watch the faces of those who come to kneel at the rail and receive. Many of our folks, resolutely reformed, receive standing. We don’t kneel. And I smile. 

Following church, we gather upstairs for our annual meeting. Someone has written “The 101st Annual Meeting" at the top of my newsprint tablet. And for West-Park it is.  And I remember the dramatic votes  that have taken place here. Determining our fate, setting courses even that we did not fully realize. Our annual family Good Friday Seven LastWords service, led by our youth, the lovingly hand made cross. 

Philip sings The Last Step of the Way. We all sing Sanctuary. We review the last year. The landmarks vote, the decision to return. Our future vision for the Centre at West-Park. Our upcoming 100th Anniversary celebration. I remind them of what we are of one mind about and what it will take to create a future. And of course, the boiler. The politicians. The need for action. And the daunting financial challenge ahead. A new slate of officers is presented, elders and deacons to be ordained and installed.  We recruit people to go with us to the IAF Assembly. We sing Halle, Halle, Halle, Hallelujah. Receive the benediction and are on our way. 

So many feelings. Like cutting an umbilical cord. Like stepping out on a tight wire without  a net. Stepping out of the boat, onto the water, believing we can walk and not sink as we move towards the one who calls us. There’s no turning back. We’re on our own now. On our own, but not alone. 

2/7

Warming. Sunny. For the first time in days? Weeks? Alternate side parking rules are back in effect. Remove the sign on the door from yesterday announcing our worship down the street at SPSA. Picking up trash left behind by melting snow. A vodka bottle. Streams of water pouring off the roof where  the snow is melting. Sandstone fragments will follow. The Superbowl is over.  The windows of CVS across the street are filled with Valentine’s Day red.

Frozen landscape

2/4

Ice glazed mounds, hills, of snow line the streets of Manhattan like icebergs in a frigid sea. This frozen arctic landscape isn’t going away anytime soon. When I get to the church, I’m happy to see that the paths I chopped through the ice earlier this week have remained open. Those last few inches by the bus stop are simply impenetrable.  

I’m looking for some things, representations of West-Park, to take with me to worship on Sunday at SPSA. We’re going back there one more time to say a goodbye and thanks. And to hold our annual meeting. Just too cold at West-Park. SPSA has been our temporary home for three years.

It’s a good memory, how we left our church and marched down the street to their sanctuary. How they welcomed us with applause. Some of us stayed outside, unable to go in, the pain of our loss too great. Others of us were moved to tears inside with the warmth of their greeting. We needed to be held for awhile and this seemed like a place that would do just that.

We expected to leave in triumph at most two years later. With a totally restored building and money to fund our mission. A real estate deal would accomplish that. That’s not what happened. So instead of waiting for a new “deal” we decided to go back and begin to recreate ourselves, take back our building, our life  on our own. 

I choose three things-- a tarnished silver communion cup we found in the clean up after the water break. Like us, in need of polish but with a history and still silver. Pieces of our building, the most recent to fall off, the reason this whole process began in the first place. And a gold cardboard crown to remember how we celebrated Three Kings’ Day with them with our music, Arcadia’s baby Jesus and our costumes. That was always one of our better days together.

Down the street, Marsha and I had breakfast. Discussed the new website we’re almost ready to launch. The upcoming New York Metro Industrial Areas Foundation assembly reporting on community organizing work in the areas of housing, education and the Ten percent is enough campaign to limit interest on debt. We remember how West-Park was a founding member and first home of IAF on the Upper West Side. We need to get some people together for turnout, for solidarity with our friends and allies across the city.

And we talk about the ongoing issue of the boiler. How stuck it feels. One more block of ice to break through. 

I go back outside to spread salt on that pesky stretch of ice on the curb by the bus stop. We will find a way to break through.

Some words about salt

2/1

When I stepped off the bus in front of the church, I realized there was hard packed snow topped with ice where people stepped off. My morning’s work was cut out for me.  With ice breaker and shovel, I cleared the path to the steps where people wait for the bus, not that the shelter’s gone. Freezing mist is icing everything. I go in, get a bag of salt to spread. Another storm is predicted for tonight. 

My Blackberry has a message for Germany reminding me to take an action to tonight’s Presbytery Social Witness Council meeting. Last summer’s PCUSA General Assembly passed an overture joining with Europeans to remember the immigrants who have died crossing the US-Mexico border and crossing the Mediterranean. It’s the first international cooperation between European Asylum workers and US border activists following the exchange of visits I helped to set up. This is good.

It also tells me that Hugo is anxiously awaiting becoming a grandfather again.

2/2

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost it’s taste, how can it’s saltiness be restored?” (Matthew 5: 13)

Let’s drink to the salt of the earth.                                                                                                      The Rolling Stones

The predicted big storm never came.  What did come was freezing sleet and ice.  As I get to the church, for the first time I feel like giving up.  All my work of yesterday turned into a sheet of ice. It’s too much. Like I’ve been feeling about this whole project. What I see before me is a metaphor. OK, that’s it, I’m done. The ice has finally defeated me. But when I see people slipping and sliding, I know I have to dig in. It’s an arduous process, compared to shoveling. You have to start  with the ice breaker then the broad shovel and finish with the scoop shovel. Layer by layer, inch by inch I work my way through one corner. I try to do something about the lake at the crossing but the water keeps flowing back on me. The city’s going to have to deal with this. 

I move on to the next corner. Still ignored by those who walk past and over me. Deacon Linda walks by on her way to her volunteer work at the Campaign Against Hunger. She’s there almost every day. “Reverend, you’re out here by yourself? No one to help you?” “People work, and well, you know.” “We’ve got so much ice,” she says, “but it looks really good.” I thank her. And collect a few more thankyous. One woman even says “Good job.” It must be children’s hour as stroller after stroller pass by with nannies or moms. (One newcomer to the city was amazed at what she thought was an unbelievable number of biracial families until she realized those women pushing the strollers were nannies.)

It’s slow but steady process. You get through the top layer of black ice and slowly the underlying white appears and finally the sidewalk. I’m thinking back to my breakfast with John. Our discussion of a budget that just might work. The nagging boiler issue. Non-responsive politicians. Potential renters and what we might get in return. Hope’s ready to just pay for the boiler ourselves to get the rentals started. I wish these tasks were as easily accomplished as digging my way through the ice. Maybe backbreaking persistence is the metaphor. What are the necessary tools?

Two corners done. Can I quit now? I think about Linda’s question. Who should, could  help? Where will they come from? When does all this work stop being like a spiritual discipline and start building a church? I see people slipping as they step off the bus. No, I can’t quit. Another metaphor? Every hour I invest makes it that much more difficult to give up.

I clear off the front of the bus stop fairly easily. The back part, in front of our steps, is more difficult. Every time I want to quit, another bus pulls up and I keep going. But finally with six unyielding inches to go, it’s time to stop. It’s been an hour and a half. 

I get out the broom and trash can. Clear the garbage that’s been uncovered. Look back at the unfinished bus stop. “Salt,” I think. And I think back to today’s lectionary study. 

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost it’s taste, how can it’s saltiness be restored?” (Matthew 5: 13) But wait a minute...does salt ever lose it’s saltiness? These bags of salt have been lying around the basement for three years. And have not “lost their saltiness?” What exactly does that mean?

Salt. It preserves. It seasons. On a wound, it causes pain. Sown on conquered cities, it means total devastation. Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking back. Makes food taste better. Causes heart issues. But what about in this situation?

Salt cuts through the ice. We are supposed to be salt. Maybe the point is the salt never loses its saltiness. It can be buried in the basement of the church for three years and still cut through ice. Our salt can be buried in the basement of our lives and still be salt. Still able to cut through the ice of domination, of indifference, of economic ice that freezes people out, the ice that cuts people off from our care. The ice of exclusion. The ice through which we just plain do not see.

I've been rereading Siddhartha with Daniel. Remember Siddhartha's words to his old friend Govinda, Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. I'm thinking about this as I chip away.Hey, that guy in the down jacket and Steeler stocking cap shoveling snow just might be an ordained minister. With and earned doctorate, for Christ’s sake. But if not so what? Still a person. A child of God. Salt of the earth. Like the people who gather in juke joints and roadside cafes and create inclusive, caring communities. That are already what we seek to become.  Salt of the earth. Can we do that ? Be that? Cut through the ice?

I know what I have to do. Go down to the basement and get another bag of salt. There’s sidewalks, a bus stop to salt. And more to come. I’ve just used up my first bag of salt of the season.

On my way home, I’ll stop by Council member Brewer’s office. Tell her scheduler to make a meeting. More ice to cut through.

                                     *****

Let's drink to the hard working people 

Let's drink to the lowly of birth

Raise your glass to the good and the evil 

Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier 

Spare a thought for his back breaking work 

Say a prayer for his wife and his children

Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd 

A swirling mass of gray and

Black and white

They don't look real to me

In fact, they look so strange

Let's drink to the hard working people 

Let's think of the lowly of birth

Spare a thought for the rag taggy people 

Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard working people 

Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the two thousand million 

Let's think of the humble of birth

The Rolling Stones

What does the Lord require?

1/30

Walking to the church, the dry sidewalk gives me a smile. Our work has made it an easy path for anyone coming to church. As I get to the door to open up, I’m greeted by a neighbor, one of Rudy’s most avid supporters. Shovel in hand,he tells me he’s off to dig out his daughter’s car. He asks what’s going on with the church. I tell him, stressing the boiler  issue. He’s shocked and surprised to hear we have no heat. I tell him to get the word out. 

Holly’s there first again. We’re slow gathering. A visitor from 87th has felt drawn to join us this morning. When I see Deacon James outside, I say, “Look at that walk, just look at that...” He smiles and says, “thing of beauty, thing of beauty.” When everyone has gathered, I tell everyone that he’s responsible for our dry walk, and everyone applauds. And he smiles.  

We share a letter on the uprising in Egypt and offer prayers for their people and others struggling for justice in the Middle East. During the time with children, Pat speaks of her  emotional connection with the Beatitudes. Shares her favorite, blessed are the peacemakers...because of what that meant in her family. For the second week in a row, I invite Shana to read. She’s a mature young girl who never misses a Sunday. Even when her mom and friends don’t come, she’s there. I have her read the climactic verse Micah 6: 8, my scripture for the day.  Paired with Matthew’s beatitudes, these passages almost preach themselves.

I explain that Micah is one of my favorites: it was the verse selected by the young  interfaith leaders group Andrea and i were in for three years. It’s the scripture  motto for the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association that has meant so much to my life and ministry for over 30 years. And the inspiration for the name of the name for our oldest son. It was the text I used when I preached to General Assembly Mission Council, the governing body of our national church. And it was the passage I chose for my friend Melissa’s installation. It is for me the basic job description, for us as individuals and as a church.  

What does the Lord require?

First, do justice. It comes before anything else...before confessions of faith, evangelism, anything...It’s at the core of scripture,whether its the Torah or Matthew 25. It’s about right relationships, and is restorative, putting things back to where they should be. It’s not an extra credit assignment, it’s the basic requirement.And it’s in the social realm that justice is lived out. 

I told them I’d just come from New Orleans where five years later the struggle to bring some people home continues. We wrestle with issues in our own neighborhood: the fight for a living wage, the wave  of homeless shelters, the work of IAF on  debt and limits to legal interest charges. A way to  limit greed. Justice is about community. 

Then to love kindness. It’s more important than judging, in fact you cannot have justice unless you love kindness, love mercy, we need them both. It’s the principle of how we should relate to one another in church. It begins with our theological understanding of the nature of humanity, that we all fail, all come up short.Therefore we simply cannot judge.

This principle even needs to guide the  way the pastor relates  to church, and the church to pastor. And also to those around us. I told them about shoveling yesterday,just to make safer sidewalks, and people’s responses. Maybe two thankyous. But it’s love kindness. It’s got to become part of our personality,something we do by heart. 

And finally,walk humbly with God. The church above all must be humble. .Even this week,in another Presbytery,  a woman was tried for being happily married, to another  woman. The fact that we’re even still arguing about this just doesn’t make sense. Now the military is even ahead of us!

History is filled with examples, even now, people still are hurt by and alienated from the church. These are the voices we need to listen to. I want West-Park to listen to. But again, humility. Let those who wish to say they know better than us, about us, have humility. Let those of us who feel they are bigger, better, more successful have humility. and above all, let us have humility. We who should know better.

I concluded with the Beatitudes. They make clear where God’s special care and concern lie. They’re different than in  Luke, more nuanced. But if you look closely you’ll see that in Luke, Jesus is addressing the crowd and in Matthew, he is addressing the disciples and pointing to the gathering  crowd. Naming them. 

He only speaks directly to the disciples when he comes to these words:

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

It’s clear that to live out the Micah life, there will be a price. People, even those in the church will look at you, at us, as if we are crazy. But it is to that ministry we are called. And in that we can rejoice and be exceedingly glad...

During the prayers, P____ kneels before the Christ Candle in prayer. Her case is reaching a crisis point. She prays for God’s will to be done. But we humans have to see what we can do as well.

Deacon James asks us to pray for his recently diagnosed multiple myloma. For us all to pray. And then has to leave because of the cold. I get frustrated, angry at how stuck this is. It isn’t right. We’ve got to find the key to unlock that door. To the boiler room. To heat. 

We sing “Lord, make us more Holy” and our day is done. 

On the steps outside, an overflow crowd from Barney Greengrass is sitting and waiting for brunch.

1/31

A quiet day. Sunny. Cold. Alternate side of the street and parking rules are suspended..The mini caterpillars are buzzing about moving the snow around. The first month of the year is over.

A service of preparation

1/29

Just back from New Orleans, the ground  covered with snow from the latest storm. I walk down the street, uncertain as to what I might find at the church when I get there. The strikers are out at Saigon Grill chanting “Boycott Saigon Grill” and ‘Don’t eat at a sweat shop.”

When I get there, it doesn’t look so bad. The scaffolding has helped again. And someone has done a decent job with the walk. But there are hard packed patches of ice, flooded cross walks  and I’m concerned about people coming to church tomorrow. So I get the ice breaker, the various shovels and set to work.

Deacon James comes by. Tells me he’d been out earlier and did the first path but had to go in  He’s been dealing  with  some medical issues, had his diagnoses.  Some challenging days ahead. He says, “See you tomorrow” and heads back up the street.

But a few minutes later, he’s back. “Couldn’t leave you alone out here,” he says. So we dig in together. Again, in this Saturday afternoon of lots of people out, I’m still shocked at the number of people who just walk over you and don’t say a word. A few scattered “excuse me’s”  are an improvement. The one or  two thank you’s a blessing. 

In an hour we’ve finished our work. Broken through the ice, scraped it off. I thank James and he heads home.  I scatter salt across the walk to guard against overnight freezing. In our tradition, we used to call services the week before communion a “service of preparation.” Today, James and I had a “service of preparation” for tomorrow. 

Latinos hanging out under the scaffolding, chatting, laughing, waiting for the bus.

New Orleans 3: Juke joint theology

1/28

Dan and I have found our way to the Candlelight in the heart of Treme. Earlier today we visited the Backstreet Museum across the street from St. Augustine Parish and the memorial to the Unnamed Slave. The former Blandin’s Funeral Parlor has been turned into a repository for a breathtaking collection of Mardi Gras Indian costumes and finery from the Social and Pleasure Clubs Second Line parade units. Towards the end of our visit , the proprietor hands us a sheet with important information. 

Over the years of my visits here, I’ve pretty much learned which regular gigs take place  where every night of every week. But now a new door has opened. For the first time I know where the same groups play on which nights every week in the black neighborhoods. And so we have come to hear the Treme Brass Band. Earlier in the evening, we’d run into them ready to parade on Bourbon. We chatted with the tuba player and he was surprised when we told him we’d be heading to the Candelight later to hear them.  

From the outside, the Candlelight is a plain concrete block box.Looks like a roadside juke joint from an earlier time.  A tarp hung from the roof on one side covers a woman with her grilled meats and jambalaya stand. Inside rows of long tables and plastic chairs, a bar and the table with the free red beans and rice. A few players are sitting in the band area, waiting for the rest to arrive. 

As the show  begins, I begin to realize why Dan has been drawn  away from classic jazz to brass band. By now, classic jazz, ending with Be Bop, has become almost like an artifact,  under glass, something to be studied, or performed in a concert. Precise charts, well defined form. It’s a long way from the sweaty hot spots described in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to Jazz at Lincoln Center. Beautiful,and yet...

Brass band, on the other hand,  has its life in the streets, in the midst of community.  It has roots in the European brass band tradition, but made its music from what flowed out of the whorehouses, and churches. It has never left the streets, from the weekly second lines to funeral parades to these neighborhood gigs.  It listens, converses, picks up whatever’s going on, r&b, hip hop, funk and keeps adding it into the flow. Can move from Jesus to reefer to salvation and lovesick blues seamlessly. And keeps on flowing, like a river. 

So why am I writing about this?  Because I covet that for the church. Not the music, but the way of being, creating. Our mainline denominations have become like classic jazz, at their best, with some congregations presenting beautiful embodiments of a classic faith expression. But the vast majority simply echo the past with the same well worn charts. 

What we need is a church that is in the street, moving, flowing, interacting, leading the followers into dance and at the same time being reshaped by what they bring. A pulsating rhythm of life flowing through the streets and carrying the people who flow with it.

But there’s more. As I watch the room fill, the dance floor bounces with a crowd of black and white, rich and poor, all shapes and sizes, including people with various disabilities clearly a part of the community. This scene in the same place could be happening anytime over the last 100 years. 

The shameful reality is that when it comes to the integration of white folks and black folks at the most intimate levels, the jukes got there long before the church. These joints with their music born at the  crossroads of sacred and profane engaged in the transgressive act of bringing black and white together  to dance, to drink, to love the music to...everything the dominant society feared.  And we’re still trying to catch up.

I’m not saying that the church should become a juke joint. They are each their own reality. But there’s a lesson to be learned about an ethos, a way of being. That embraces and accepts life in all its reality and rawness. An uncompromising authenticity.  If the church can’t do that, it’s over. Or should be. If it can’t go there, its not worth it. Seems to me that’s what incarnational theology is all about. 

New Orleans 2: Questions from the Lower 9th

1/27

While taking Dan on a tour of the still devastated Lower 9th, we go visit the Make it Right Homes, Brad Pitts’ s commitment to build 150 homes. In addition to being built five feet above the ground, they’re all creatively green. It makes me wonder, would the Landmarks commission accept voltaic solar panels on the roof? Rainwater collectors to use in washing the steps and sidewalk? Could we install dual flush toilets? Use recycled   wood? In our process of rebuilding can we commit to green and make it work? Be an urban landmark rehab model?

These homes are inspiring. But make no mistake...the continued intentional emptiness of the lower 9th is criminal. It's clear who the powers do not want to come back. Ever.

My friend Matthew is Pastor of Berean Presbyterian Church, the first African-American Presbyterian church in New Orleans. As another small church pastor, we share many of the same struggles. Ironically, small churches can be emotionally more challenging than large ones. They can become ingrown, familial, proprietary and even isolationist, change resistant. I would love to bring our congregations closer, have them share  in our 100th anniversary, take a group from here  down there  to build and share time together. Make our mission life more real, more interconnected.